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Research Incentive Programs for Closures of Public and Private Grade Crossings [Supporting Dataset]
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2018-12-01
[BIN]
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Edition:Final report, Jun. 2017 – Jun. 2018
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Abstract:Vehicle-train crashes that occur at highway-rail crossings result in injuries, fatalities, and damage to equipment. In order to reduce the number of vehicle-train crashes, the Federal Railroad Administration requires states which have challenges with crossing safety, including Louisiana, to develop a State Action Plan to improve grade crossing safety. Consequently, identification of specific solutions for improving safety at crossings was included in the 2015 Louisiana Transportation Plan as one of its objectives. This study seeks to identify and evaluate current and new incentive programs that encourage closure of at-grade railroad crossings to reduce the number of potential vehicle-train collision points, and hence improve safety. To accomplish this, a survey was designed and was distributed to personnel of state and railroad agencies. Survey responses from the state departments of transportation (DOTs) revealed that currently, 16 states had no incentive programs for consolidation or closure of highway-rail crossings. Analysis of the survey data revealed that states without any incentive program had the least proportion of highway-rail crossing closures. The study revealed that cash incentives, while popular are not effective because although the Federal Government contributes to a state’s effort in offering cash incentives for closure of public grade crossings, the amount is not substantial enough to be considered a significant incentive by most local governments. Also, track relocation, while effective is mostly impractical due to the high costs involved. A literature review revealed that having a mathematical model to guide on the selection of crossings for consolidation or closure provides sound scientific basis and is usually welcomed by the community. The research team identified three potential new incentives that could work well for Louisiana namely crime rate reduction incentives, greenness improvement programs, and the development of a grade crossing consolidation model that considers safety, among a plethora of other factors, to be used to prioritize crossings to be closed. However, additional work is required to validate these programs for statewide deployment.
The total size of the described file is 114 MB. The .csv, Comma Separated Value, file is a simple format that is designed for a database table and supported by many applications. The .csv file is often used for moving tabular data between two different computer programs, due to its open format. Any text editor or spreadsheet program will open .csv files. Files with the .xlsx extension are Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files. These can be opened in Excel or open-source spreadsheet programs. Docx files are document files created in Microsoft Word. These files can be opened using Microsoft Word or with an open source text viewer such as Apache OpenOffice. PDFs are used to display text and images and can be opened with any PDF reader or editor. JPG files can be opened using the system's photo viewer.
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Content Notes:National Transportation Library (NTL) Curation Note: As this dataset is preserved in a repository outside U.S. DOT control, as allowed by the U.S. DOT’s Public Access Plan (https://doi.org/10.21949/1503647) Section 7.4.2 Data, the NTL staff has performed NO additional curation actions on this dataset. The current level of dataset documentation is the responsibility of the dataset creator. NTL staff last accessed this dataset at its repository URL on 2023-07-27. If, in the future, you have trouble accessing this dataset at the host repository, please email NTLDataCurator@dot.gov describing your problem. NTL staff will do its best to assist you at that time.
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