An examination of the impact of five grade crossing safety factors on driver decision making

Details

• Creators:
  Yeh, Michelle ; Multer, Jordan ; Raslear, Thomas
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.) ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Railroad grade crossings
  • Safety factors
  • Countermeasures
  • Decision making
  • Driver performance
  • Commercial drivers
  • Commercial vehicles Signal detection theory
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Taylor & Francis
• Description:
  The authors applied signal detection theory to model the impact
  
  of five grade-crossing safety factors to understand their impact
  
  on driver decision making. The safety factors were improving
  
  commercial motor vehicle (CMV) driver safety through federal
  
  regulations, increasing locomotive conspicuity with alerting
  
  lights, increasing locomotive conspicuity with reflectors,
  
  increasing sight lines, and improving warning device reliability.
  
  The authors estimated sensitivity and bias for eight warning
  
  devices associated with each safety factor. The authors also
  
  calculated the proportion of variance accounted for by each
  
  safety factor and device type to examine the reliability of each
  
  on grade-crossing safety. Driver decision making improved due
  
  to the warning device type and the introduction of the safety
  
  factor. Of the two, warning devices exerted the most impact
  
  because they encouraged drivers to stop at grade crossings.
  
  Regulations to improve CMV driver safety, alerting lights, sight
  
  lines, and reflectors were generally equally effective in
  
  improving grade-crossing safety. A comparison of the results
  
  from the descriptive model to that produced by a more
  
  traditional accident analysis suggest that examination of
  
  accident frequency alone may minimize the impact of important
  
  safety factors and emphasizes the need to consider accident
  
  frequency with respect to human behavioral metrics.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/12290/dot_12290_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 901.01 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8da0c65d0cdcfebf494d70b06b7a55630f90c6804b933bd4b4e0e842ffaa91427c0ca02ab8be328741570f25e8fc45c916174e488178a19ff6493fb4bf4286c8