The campaign is intended to raise public awareness of the safety risks surrounding level crossings, in order to change the behaviour of road users, including vehicle drivers and pedestrians. According to UIC statistics, level crossings account for around 1% of road deaths in Europe, but 28% of all rail fatalities. FRA reports that there were around 250 fatalities at the USA’s 210 000 crossings last year. ILCAD co-ordinator Isabelle Fonverne says that while the majority of incidents can be attributed to misuse of the crossing by motorists or pedestrians, ‘there is a popular and widespread misconception that level crossing incidents are a railway problem’.
Speaking on behalf of Australasia's TrackSAFE Foundation, ARA Chief Executive Brian Nye said 'this impressive initiative brings global attention to level crossing safety, which continues to be one of the rail industry’s major safety concerns'.
Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General of UIC, says that “UIC is pleased to have coordinated ILCAD for six years now, a unique international event in terms of public awareness about the risks related to the road/rail interface; a campaign which brings together so many countries and partners from across the world from all different sectors. We thank all the participating countries, REFER and prominent speakers from the rail, road and institutional sectors; from Belgium, Estonia, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Switzerland who will join UIC to make this event a success.”
While the most effective way to reduce the number of accidents is to close all level crossings, this is not always practical, so ILCAD encourages both education and enforcement. Education highlights the risks and makes people aware of the potential consequences if they do not follow the rules of the road, while enforcement follows up to deal with persistent or blatant misuse.
A centrepiece of this year’s event is a round table in Lisbon, hosted by Portuguese infrastructure manager REFER, with a specific focus on the education of ‘professional’ drivers operating school buses, coaches, taxis, vans, tractors, lorries and even emergency vehicles.
Did you know?
•UIC estimates that there are over 600,000 level crossings (LC) in the world.
• On average one person is killed and almost one person is seriously injured at a Level Crossing in the EU each day. 573 significant accidents resulting in 369 fatalities and 339 people seriously injured. The number of fatalities represents 29% of all accidental deaths in the railways against 1% of road fatalities – which is considered a minor problem for the road sector but a huge problem for the railways. 1% of road-user fatalities at LC is 1% too many, which is why road and rail are working together.
•Almost all accidents at LC (at least in Europe) are caused by errors or deliberate misuse of road users and pedestrians who do not respect traffic signs and signals. These people usually live and work near LC.
•These collisions can cause derailment, death or serious injury to railway staff and train passengers, result in post-traumatic stress and long, costly and awkward delays for road and rail users, as well as expensive damage to infrastructure and rolling stock.
•A train travelling at 90 km/h takes up to 1200 m to stop, depending on the weight of the train, while a car travelling at 100 km/h takes up to 80 m to stop.
•A train can weigh between 130 to 6000 tonnes, depending on the type of train and the country (the average weight of a car in Europe is over 1 tonne).
Today marks the sixth annual International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD) with participation from operators in more than 45 countries across the world. Launched in 2009, the ILCAD campaign spearheaded by the International Union of Railways has gained wide support across the rail sector, together with a growing number of road sector organisations, the European Commission and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. New participants this year include Russian Railways and Vietnam Railways. See below for the full story and some amazing near-miss videos.
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