TREkKiE

Motivation: The currently valid Railway Crossing Regulation (EisbKrV 2012) allows a railway crossing system to be secured by emitting an acoustic signal up to a rail vehicle speed of 20-25 km/h. Problems with acoustic signals are that today's cars are more silenced and therefore acoustic signals can only be heard from the driver from a distance of approx. 120m. Regardless of this, there are often complaints from residents who feel annoyed by the acoustic signals.

Problem statement, objectives of the project: In Austria there are 1,317 railway crossing facilities that are secured with the obligation to provide acoustic signals from the rail vehicle (according to the Federal Transport Authority 2017). In 2016, 39 accidents occurred at these railroad crossings. The financing of technical security systems is generally very difficult and therefore lightly used railway crossings are often equipped with a non-technical security system or even left open.

In this project, the approach is pursued to develop a technical safety system with low installation and maintenance costs and to evaluate it for its road safety. A combination of approaches of technical security but lower costs forms the basis for a “simplified” level crossing security system. As part of this, different variants of the optical equipment are to be checked according to traffic safety and legal aspects by means of research, surveys and objective measurements. The project aims to evaluate which of these new variants found during research would be the best in terms of understanding and security for the users of the level crossing.

Results: Within the scope of this project, a test position and a preliminary survey are used to evaluate which of these, or other new variants found in the course of the project, is the most understandable, legally correct and safest for road users. Potential customers would be the operators of regional and branch lines, since they have a large number of acoustically secured railway crossings on their routes and are interested in a solution with regard to the high financial burden of a technically secured level crossing versus a dissolution of the level crossing.