Video Studies of Flexible Traffic Separators at Highway- Railroad Grade Crossings Florida Department of Transportation Rail Office

Project Motivation  To enhance highway-railroad grade crossing safety by discouraging motorists from driving around gates to enter the crossing area

Project Tasks  Install traffic separator devices at three highway-railroad grade crossing sites in central Florida.  Perform a field evaluation of their operation

QWIK KURB ® Traffic Separators A series of Type 3 object markers fastened to the roadway surface

CSX – Park Road (Hillsborough County

CSX-US 98 (Polk County)

CSX – Alt 17 (Polk County)

Study Methodology  Time lapse video  24 hours per tape  12V battery power  Tapes viewed by observers to identify violations Cabinet Conduit Telescoping Mast Camera

Videotapes Obtained SiteBefore After Park Rd41 days20 days US 9831 days22 days Alt 2733 days26 days More than 4000 hours observed

Study Schedule Detail Park RoadUS 98SR 17 BeforeAfterBeforeAfterBeforeAfter Sampling Interval2/07/02 3/20/02 4/16/02 5/08/02 5/15/02 6/16/02 6/28/02 7/21/02 5/14/02 6/17/02 6/27/02 7/21/02 Trains (weekday) Trains (weekend) Total vehicles Gate activations Total trains QWICK KURB® installation 04/16/0206/27/02

Results …

Drive-around Violations SiteBefore After Park Rd (NB)20 US 9861 Alt Total251

Anecdotal Observations: 1. Truck Interactions  A truck pushed the gate into the path of a train at night  A gate closed on top of a truck  A truck blocked the crossing forcing (slow) train to stop

Anecdotal Observations: 2. Damage to Traffic Separator  Several pieces of the separator were removed by a vehicle (outside of camera view) at the US 98 site  This site has a roadway width < 11 feet

Anecdotal Observations: 2. Damage to Traffic Separator

Anecdotal Observations: 3. Bicycle/ Pedestrian Violations  3 bicycle violations at Park Road  1 Pedestrian violation at US 98 and at Alt 17  All were before separator installation

Anecdotal Observations: 4. Platoon Violation Seven vehicles drove around the gate in one platoon at US 98

Anecdotal Observations: 5. Pedestrian Trespass Fatality A pedestrian was observed entering the track area and later reported killed.

Anecdotal Observations: 6. Switching delays at Park Road  Frequent switching operations caused long crossing closures  Slow trains occasionally entered the crossing before the gates had fully descended

Anecdotal Observations: 7. Gate violation after separators were installed One vehicle drove around the separators and bypassed a queue of waiting vehicles The gates were down for 7 minutes before the train arrived

Anecdotal Observations: 7. Gate violation after separators were installed

Conclusions …

Effectiveness of the Separators The reduction of drive-around violations from 25 to 1 suggests that the traffic separators were effective in discouraging motorists from driving around the gates

Overall Violation Rates Overall violation rates without separators at the study sites were lower than typically reported in the literature

Park Road Configuration  The extremely low violation rates were probably the result of a configuration that discouraged violations.  Since these same conditions would make violations more hazardous than normal, the separators could improve safety at this site even with a low violation rate.

Effect of Roadway Width  Roadways narrower than 11 feet may not be amenable to this treatment.

Future Implementation  Each potential site should be investigated using the general methodology of this study to determine whether or not separators are justified.  It should not normally be necessary to conduct follow up evaluation studies at future sites.