Safety Considerations Regarding the Abolition of Compulsory Stopping before Entering Railroad Crossings

Abstract

We performed quantitative evaluation of the possible effects of removing the obligation for cars to come to a complete stop before proceeding at level crossings in Japan. We carried out field investigations objective to vehicular traffic and evaluated safety under current conditions concerning traffic situations where vehicles cross train lines. We then evaluated safety by removing the temporary stop obligation in a traffic experiment over a level crossing using a driving simulator. Comparing the results of the two evaluations clearly demonstrated that accidents and train delays increase at level crossings with heavy traffic.