Wildlife deterrent methods for railways-an experimental study

Abstract

Since reliable accident statistics and consequent costs have become available, train collisions with wildlife, especially ungulates, have received increasing attention in Sweden. In contrast to collisions on roads, accidents involving wildlife on railways do not entail human injury or death, but can cause substantial train damage and lead to significant delays in railway traffic. Wildlife-train collisions (WTC) are rising in numbers and railways appear as a greater source of ungulate mortality per kilometer than roads. Nevertheless, railways are largely unprotected against wildlife collisions, and mitigation measures that have hitherto been applied to roads are either infeasible or economically unviable for railways. The Swedish Transport Administration is therefore seeking innovative and cost-effective measures for preventing collisions with larger wild animals. In this chapter, we present research on WTC in Sweden that has been used to define the baseline and set up criteria for a new mitigation project. This project aims to develop warning or deterring signals that encourage animals to leave the railway shortly before trains arrive. This will be carried out at several experimental crosswalks for animals along fenced railways where the effect of different signals on animal behaviour can be evaluated. If effective, these deterrent systems could replace fencing and/or crossing structures, and reduce mortality and barrier effects on wildlife. The project was begun in 2015 and will continue for at least 4 years.