Introduction• Level Crossing Risk

– Approximately 30% of rail related fatalities occur as a result of motor vehicle collisions1

– Annual estimated cost to Australian society $116,279,817 ($2010)2

– Over 23,500 level crossings, 8,838 public (67% with passive protection)3

• Rail Level Crossing Suite of Projects– R3.122 – Affordable Level Crossings– R2.121 – Low-cost RLX Risk & Legal Evaluation– R2.119 – Baseline RLX Video

Click icon to add picture

1 2011 Level crossing accidents in Australia. Transport Safety Bulletin, Independent Transport Safety Regulator NSW2 2010 Tooth & Balmford, RISSB Railway Level Crossing Incident Costing Model3 2009 Level Crossing Stocktake, Railway Industry Safety and Standards Board, Australia

R3.122 Affordable Level Crossings• National Low-cost Level Crossing Trial Programme

• Located on North Coast Line• Narrow gauge, bi-directional track• 25KV AC overhead power• Preceding cutting and curve• 60 km/h [70km/h Tilt-train]• Freight & passenger traffic

• Located on North Coast Line• Standard gauge, bi-directional track• 115km/h freight [125km/h passenger]• Freight & passenger traffic

• Located on Geelong-Ballarat freight corridor

• Broad gauge, bi-directional track• Low-frequency freight traffic

Click icon to add picture

Data Collection• Weather monitoring stations• Temperature, humidity, solar

radiation, wind speed, wind direction

• 3G mobile communications to download logs remotely

• Comparative logger• PLC records state changes for all

inputs with timestamp• 3G mobile communications to

download logs remotely

R3.121 Low-Cost Rail Level Crossing Risk & Legal Evaluation

Click icon to add picture

R2.119 Baseline Rail Level Crossing Video

• Participants

Click icon to add picture

Limitations of Level Crossing Incident Analysis

• Number of level crossing collisions (lagging indicators) insignificant for data analysis

• Near-miss occurrences (leading indicators)– Occur with a frequency orders of magnitude greater than collisions– Reportable occurrences

• However, there are issues with current paper-based reporting– Under-reporting & inconsistencies in reporting– Subjectivity– Inaccuracies in retrospective description of events

Click icon to add picture

Limitations of Level Crossing Incident Analysis

• Pitfalls of causal analysis on sparse data1 – Over-interpretation– Tendency for analysts to identify causal factors

representative of a category of failure rather than identifying characteristics that may distinguish it

– Current near-miss reporting does not describe the “less visible influences” that may condition an incident

Click icon to add picture

1 Johnson, C. (2003). Failure in Safety-Critical Systems: A Handbook of Incident and Accident Reporting. Glasgow, Scotland Glasgow University Press.

Info

rma

tio

n G

ath

eri

ng

an

d D

ata

An

aly

sis

Pla

tfo

rm

R2.119 Baseline Rail Level Crossing Video

Click icon to add picture

Data Collection Infrastructure• Tilt-train • Forward facing video• 2Tb video / fortnight / train• Disk swap procedure

• Back-end Servers• 2 sets of equipment• Servers with 8 processor cores / set• 100Tb storage in RAID 6 array / set

• Queensland Rail– North Coast Line ≈ 1680km– Currently 3 Tilt-trains – Additional trains later in the year

© Stuart Edwards

BRISBANE

824 Level crossings451 Public248 Occupational 28 Pedestrian 97 Queensland Rail

Data Collection

Click icon to add picture

Distance from Rail Centreline Object detection - car

Object detection - bus

Localization – to be developed

Video Analytics

R2.119 Benefits for Australian Rail Industry

• Inform improvements to existing paper-based reporting– Better criteria and sub-categorization consistent with statutory reporting requirements– Simulator-based training for drivers to improve objectivity of reporting

• Improve understanding of the context of near-misses and causal factors that lead to incidents at railway level crossings

– Inform countermeasures– Improve risk models used to prioritize upgrade funding

• Enhance the understanding of the inter-relationship between human performance and other elements of the system

• The Future…

Click icon to add picture

R2.119 Platform Verticalization• R2.119 project focused on near-

misses at level crossings• Platform can be verticalized to

support several application domains

Questions

Click icon to add picture