Quantifying emergency response system risk caused by grade crossing blockages

Abstract

Delays experienced by emergency response (ER) vehicles at highway-rail grade (level) crossings have potentially catastrophic consequences, but emerging technologies that provide crossing blockage information could mitigate risks to ER systems. While evidence suggests these technologies could reduce response times, there is a need to quantify the risk associated with crossing blockages on ER systems. This article develops and applies a probabilistic methodology to quantify this risk through two case examples using data collected in Winnipeg, Canada. The results show that 13.2% of ER vehicles that traversed the studied crossing experienced a crossing blockage delay in the study period. Likewise, 0.5% of ER trips dispatched from the studied station experienced a crossing blockage delay. City-wide aggregated results, produced by the arising software developed by TRAINFO, corroborated the findings of the probabilistic methodology. The methodology could be used to support real-time dispatching, to rank risky crossings, and to prioritize crossings for upgrades.