The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Challenging conventional rural rail level crossing design: Evaluating three new systems thinking-based designs in a driving simulator

Challenging conventional rural rail level crossing design: Evaluating three new systems thinking-based designs in a driving simulator
Challenging conventional rural rail level crossing design: Evaluating three new systems thinking-based designs in a driving simulator

The road-rail interface is hazardous for both road vehicles and trains, with collisions often resulting in serious injury and deaths of drivers and passengers. This is a major problem worldwide, and there is currently no appropriately effective low-cost solution for rural areas. Grade separation is prohibitively costly for most rail level crossings. This research evaluated three proposed new, relatively low-cost design solutions: GPS Average Speed interface, Simple but Strong crossing and Ecological Interface Design crossing. These new designs were compared with the conventional passive and active rural rail level crossings in a driving simulator. The findings suggest that there is a preference for the standard rail level crossings, probably because this is what drivers are used to. Of the new designs, the Ecological Interface Design rail level crossing seemed to perform the best in the simulator study, and could be implemented at a lower cost than conventional active rail level crossings. However, all three designs had apparent strengths and weaknesses. These findings highlight possible design solutions that should be further tested in real-world field trials.

Driving simulation, Rail level crossings, Road users, Situation awareness
0925-7535
Beanland, Vanessa
2429dbf1-4d8e-4997-8b3a-a767206aea56
Grant, Eryn
bb739981-d293-412f-9045-710b1e76ff7f
Read, Gemma J.M.
b581e346-d10e-43d6-bf04-a765780d4fdd
Stevens, Nicholas
2413f2c4-9d58-4752-9ab6-62da8d8022d4
Thomas, Miles
4f5b9fac-23ed-4ef0-b5c3-88e84e5212b5
Lenné, Michael G.
42ec07a3-a610-4b56-89d9-cd0f65a6d41d
Stanton, Neville A.
351a44ab-09a0-422a-a738-01df1fe0fadd
Salmon, Paul M.
8fcdacc0-31f9-4276-bd9e-8127db6c806e
Beanland, Vanessa
2429dbf1-4d8e-4997-8b3a-a767206aea56
Grant, Eryn
bb739981-d293-412f-9045-710b1e76ff7f
Read, Gemma J.M.
b581e346-d10e-43d6-bf04-a765780d4fdd
Stevens, Nicholas
2413f2c4-9d58-4752-9ab6-62da8d8022d4
Thomas, Miles
4f5b9fac-23ed-4ef0-b5c3-88e84e5212b5
Lenné, Michael G.
42ec07a3-a610-4b56-89d9-cd0f65a6d41d
Stanton, Neville A.
351a44ab-09a0-422a-a738-01df1fe0fadd
Salmon, Paul M.
8fcdacc0-31f9-4276-bd9e-8127db6c806e

Beanland, Vanessa, Grant, Eryn, Read, Gemma J.M., Stevens, Nicholas, Thomas, Miles, Lenné, Michael G., Stanton, Neville A. and Salmon, Paul M. (2018) Challenging conventional rural rail level crossing design: Evaluating three new systems thinking-based designs in a driving simulator. Safety Science. (doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2018.03.002).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The road-rail interface is hazardous for both road vehicles and trains, with collisions often resulting in serious injury and deaths of drivers and passengers. This is a major problem worldwide, and there is currently no appropriately effective low-cost solution for rural areas. Grade separation is prohibitively costly for most rail level crossings. This research evaluated three proposed new, relatively low-cost design solutions: GPS Average Speed interface, Simple but Strong crossing and Ecological Interface Design crossing. These new designs were compared with the conventional passive and active rural rail level crossings in a driving simulator. The findings suggest that there is a preference for the standard rail level crossings, probably because this is what drivers are used to. Of the new designs, the Ecological Interface Design rail level crossing seemed to perform the best in the simulator study, and could be implemented at a lower cost than conventional active rail level crossings. However, all three designs had apparent strengths and weaknesses. These findings highlight possible design solutions that should be further tested in real-world field trials.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 1 March 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 March 2018
Keywords: Driving simulation, Rail level crossings, Road users, Situation awareness

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 421606
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/421606
ISSN: 0925-7535
PURE UUID: 4b5ce697-5541-48dd-b2b5-d5d395536e9d
ORCID for Neville A. Stanton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8562-3279

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 Jun 2018 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:01

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Vanessa Beanland
Author: Eryn Grant
Author: Gemma J.M. Read
Author: Nicholas Stevens
Author: Miles Thomas
Author: Michael G. Lenné
Author: Paul M. Salmon

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×