Citation

Heathington KW, Fambro DB, Rochelle RW. Transp. Res. Rec. 1984; 956: 1-4.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Six new active railroad-highway grade crossing warning devices were evaluated under controlled laboratory testing conditions. The six devices included two alternatives for each of three basic systems--four-quadrant gates (with and without skirts), four-quadrant flashing light signals (with and without strobes), and highway traffic signals (with one and with three white bar strobes). The evaluation involved testing the performance of each of the six devices in a near realworld environment to identify the three most desirable devices for subsequent field testing. Thirty-two test subjects drove an instrumented vehicle repeatedly over a private two-lane highway. On each trip down the roadway, the test driver encountered three full-scale active warning devices, any one of which may or may not have been actuated as the vehicle approached. The experimental design included different actuation distances as well as day and night conditions. In addition to driver behavior data, attitudinal data on the effectiveness of the six devices were obtained from each subject. All six active warning devices tested were perceived to be superior to standard active warning devices currently in use at railroad-highway grade crossings. Generally speaking, alternative B of each system (i.e., with skirts, with overhead strobes, and with three white bar strobes) was more effective. Four-quadrant gates with skirts tended to be a superior system in all categories of analysis. The relative effectiveness of flashing light signals and highway traffic signals tended to alternate depending on the category of analysis; there was not a consistent ordering of effectiveness of these two systems.

Language: en

Keywords

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC CONTROL; RAILROAD PLANT AND STRUCTURES - Crossing Gates; SIGNALING - Applications