American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

Special Committee on Research and Innovation

FY2023 NCHRP PROBLEM STATEMENT TEMPLATE

Problem Number: 2023-G-27

Problem Title

Evaluation of Trespassing Detection and Warning Systems in the Vicinity of Highway-Rail Grade Crossings

Background Information and Need For Research

Highway-rail grade crossings have always presented a significant safety challenge for road authorities and railroads across the United States (US). Historically, the source of most of the railroad-related deaths, implementation of a dedicated federal funding program in the early 1970s has resulted in tremendous reductions in highway-rail grade crossing fatalities, from 888 in 1975 to 197 in 2020, according to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Still a major focus for safety improvements, highway-rail grade crossings now represent the second highest source of railroad-related fatalities behind trespassing.

Trespassing, including suicides, now represents approximately 70% of all railroad-related deaths and is trending upward. The FRA Office of Safety Analysis data demonstrates trespassing fatalities increasing over 31% the past 10 years to 525 fatalities in 2020, a number far exceeding the 197 fatalities at highway-rail grade crossings. According to FRA, the 9,363 reported trespassing accidents during the 2012 and 2016 period were associated with a societal cost of $43.2 billion in fatalities and injuries and more than $56.0 million losses in travel time delays in trains.

Additionally, the FRA reports that about 74% of deaths and injuries related to rail trespassing (excluding suicides) and 73% of suicide attempts occur within 1,000 feet (<0.25 mile) of a highway-rail grade crossing. These incidents occurring in the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings also cause significant delays to motorists, their passengers, and other roadway users at the crossings.

Reasons behind most trespassing behavior include crossing the rail property provides the most direct route to a desired destination and trespassers not being fully aware of the dangers involved in such trespassing behavior. Lack of deterrents, poor community planning, lack of grade crossings in large sections of track all contribute to an increased number of trespassing. Community decisions such as the placement of public buildings, services and bus stops relative to safe crossing paths could affect people’s choices of trespassing the rail property.

In addition to enhancing law enforcement, education, community and roadway planning, new technologies can be applied to railroad and highway right-of-way (ROW) to prevent trespassing from happening in the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings. One of those is the surveillance systems that can be installed to detect and warn trespassers. At present, there is extensive knowledge concerning how to detect intruders in terms of general security sensitive installations, such as utility plants, banks, etc. However, technologies and systems that are used to detect trespassers in the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings are limited and the effectiveness and scopes of implementation of new technologies on such tasks have not been thoroughly evaluated. The unclear effectiveness and range of applications of these detection and warning systems will provide limited, if not misleading, information to the decision makers when choosing the appropriate systems to implement. Therefore, systemic evaluations of the trespassing and suicide detection and warning systems along rail ROW particularly in the vicinity of grade crossings has significant impacts on the health of the integrated multimodal transportation system. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Rail-Highway Crossings (Section 130) Program provides funds for “the elimination of hazards at highway-rail grade crossings” and “eligible projects include those involving all public rail crossings: roadways, bike trails, and pedestrian paths”. Half of a state’s apportionment is prescribed for installing protective devices at crossings, while the remaining can be used for other hazard elimination projects, and the installing of detection and warning systems could be an effective solution for preventing trespassing and suicide in the vicinity of grade crossings. Highway authorities should take the lead on improving the grade crossings safety and working together with rail authorities by choosing and implementing effective detection and warning systems and technologies at grade crossings.

Literature Search Summary

There is a limited amount of existing research available examining systems to detect and provide warnings and alerts to people trespassing on rail ROW and/or warnings to the rail/highway staff prior to an imminent strike by on-track equipment.

In 2007, Volpe provided an update on state-of-the-art technologies at that time on intrusion and obstacle detection that can be applied to rail ROW and crossings. Three application methods – infrastructure-based, cooperation between infrastructure and locomotive, and locomotive-based were discussed. The infrastructure-based are often developed for crossings, such as the AWARE system which incorporated an intrusion detection system with wireless communication, and the Nestor’s Rail CrossingGuard which detected gate/signal violations. Though it was a relatively comprehensive study, emerging technologies between now and then, especially in computer vision, LIDAR, UAV and so on, provide great potential for performance improvement and cost reduction.

In 2012, Volpe published a study on the effectiveness of an automated prototype rail infrastructure security system on a railroad bridge in Pittsford, New York. The system was a video-based trespass monitoring and deterrent system. The system detected nearly 4,000 events or 4.6 events per day. A significant drop in the trespassing rate was seen in Year 2 (60% reduction), however, the trend did not continue in to the third year. It was also noted that large animals triggered many alarms, and it would be difficult to mask without compromising the system’s detection capabilities. With great advances in machine learning in recent years, a more precise detection and significant reductions in false alarms could possibly be achieved.

Volpe recently conducted a research study along with the Brunswick, ME, police department where fixed cameras were installed at several ROW locations to evaluate the effectiveness of trespass detection technology (2020). Live streaming video was captured and transmitted from the sites via wireless broadband services. The trespasser detection relied on video motion detection software. The report had several important findings – video motion detection and passive infrared both had limitations and came with false alarms; the wireless bandwidth communication is critical in providing high-definition stream videos but can be a challenge for some locations; TV white space transceivers had limited transmission range.

Other proprietary systems have been developed to provide surveillance and warning systems to help with platform safety, crossing safety, or on-track rail work safety. Examples include the Platform Track Intrusion Detection System (PTIDS) and the Railway Level Crossing Safety Detection and Warning System developed by Honeywell (2018) which use radar technology for platform safety and level crossing safety, the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras (also known as video surveillance) combined with sound warnings, megaphones, flashcams, infrared illuminator, and automatic vehicle location (AVL), etc. Protran/Harsco developed systems to provide warnings to on-track rail workers to avoid employee casualties. Such systems offer many lessons that can be applied to developing effective trespass detection and warning systems.

As can be seen, though there are some existing studies on technologies and systems that can be used for detecting trespassers on rail ROW, the research is either outdated or has only been focusing on a specific technology prototyped/tested in selected locations. Research on more accurate, efficient, and cost-effective infrastructure-based technologies and systems that can be applied to grade crossings is especially lacking. Considering the extensive railroad lengths in the US and the overrepresentation of trespassing and suicide events in the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings, investigation of such technologies and systems that can be applied to grade crossings has significant importance. With newer technologies being available in image detection, radar, LIDAR, infrared, UAV, and so on, it is necessary and urgent to conduct a systemic evaluation of such technologies to be used in detecting and warning trespassers as well as giving advance warnings to rail staff and train operators.

Meanwhile, evaluating the effectiveness of the different technologies, systems and their scopes of application is imperative to help guiding better decision making in selecting the appropriate systems to implement. The proposed research should accomplish these goals and helps create a safer multimodal transportation system in the vicinity of grade crossings.

Research Objective

The objective is to identify existing commercial off-the-shelf security and warning technology for detecting intruders, evaluate their effectiveness in deploying to the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings for detecting and warning trespassers, and develop guidance on selecting appropriate systems based on different needs and conditions. The following tasks should be considered at a minimum.

(1) Identify potential intruder detection and warning technologies that can be applied to rail ROW in the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings.

(2) Provide for each of the technologies: engineering description of the necessary hardware and technologies; indication of types of automated warnings; discussion of software and analysis technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence) necessary to interpret and collate data collected to assist with decision making; discussion of costs of hardware, software, maintenance and staffing.

(3) Comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of existing and new rail detection and warning systems in reducing trespass activities and suicide, support with data when applicable.

(4) Investigate the circumstances under which the varied systems and technologies are applicable, including but not limited to funding considerations, environmental characteristics, infrastructure requirements, etc.

(5) Provide guidance to decision-makers on choosing the appropriate warning systems and the roles and responsibilities of the roadway authority.

Urgency and Potential Benefits

This research can reduce trespassing-related fatalities and injuries in the vicinity of highway-rail grade crossings by identifying effective technologies that detect and warn people that they are in a dangerous location and in immediate harm, and provide information on the extent, location and nature of trespass to inform decision makers on engineering, education and enforcement actions. To state DOTs, this will help improve safety and reduce delays to highway traffic caused by trespassing and suicide events in the vicinity of grade crossings.

Implementation Considerations

Some of the proposed systems may be ready for immediate trial using off-the-shelf technology. The proposer should show that there would be clear benefits relative to costs. Implementation may also require a joint and cooperative action between state highway agencies, railroads, transit, local municipalities and local police departments. Other systems may be in development stages, and the researchers should map out a process by which highway and rail stakeholders can be involved in the development of these technologies for future uses.

Recommended Research Funding and Research Period

Research Funding: $450,000 Research Period: 30 months

Problem Statement Author(S): For each author, provide their name, affiliation, email address and phone.

Dr. Shanshan Zhao, University of Connecticut, shanshan.h.zhao@uconn.edu, 860-486-1587

Jeff Warner, Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Dr. Ian Savage, Northwestern University

Steve Laffey, Illinois Commerce Commission

Greg Orrell, The MITRE Corporation

Dr. Robert Rescot, Applied Research Associate, Inc.

Potential Panel Members: For each panel member, provide their name, affiliation, email address and phone.

Steve Laffey, Illinois Commerce Commission, Rail Safety Specialist, 217-785-9026, Stephen.laffey@illinois.gov

Dr. Pamela Fischhaber, Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Chief Rail/Transit Safety, 303-894-2529, pamela.fischhaber@state.co.us

Person Submitting The Problem Statement: Name, affiliation, email address and phone.

Venetta Keefe, (317) 232-1474, vkeefe@indot.in.gov, Indiana Department of Transportation