Contributing Human Factors in German Level Crossing Accidents

Abstract

“Level crossings should consistently be designed in a way, that the priority of the rail transport over road traffic becomes clearly visible.” To fulfil this requirement as stated in the safety guidelines of the Deutsche Bahn, level crossings in Germany are equipped with different combinations of roadside signs, light signals and barriers, to emphasise the priority of crossing trains over road traffic users. Nevertheless, the right of way of the rail transport seems not always to be obvious to road traffic users. Accidents at level crossing occur regularly, even at sites that are secured with physical barriers and light signals. Such accidents usually consist of a collision between a road user and a rail vehicle. In 94% of these cases, collisions originate from misconduct of a road traffic user. Errors of train drivers and operators or technical failures are scarce. Even though collisions at level crossings only account for a fairly small share of the total rate of road traffic accidents, these accidents are of particular relevance because of their severe consequences for property and persons. In order to understand why such a large portion of collisions is caused by road traffic users despite the safety measures already applied, it is necessary to examine the underlying errors depending on different configurations of railway crossings. This paper therefore systematically analyses the role of human error on the part of road traffic users at German level crossings to provide a better understanding of contributing factors in critical situations. Therefore a broad variety of documents regarding level crossing accidents was reviewed and categorised in this work.