Evaluation of high-speed rail-highway crossing protection treatments

High speed rail operation on an existing rail corridor requires extensive rail-highway crossing safety improvements. The focus of this study was on developing safety-based cost-effective rail-highway grade crossing protection plans for upgrading conventional rail lines for high speed rail operation. Three crossing protection treatments were considered to be feasible: crossing closure, barrier and grade separation.; The first phase of this study focused on developing the ability to model the impacts of crossing closure. This involved highway network creation, subarea analysis, and network assignment using GIS. Detailed corridor-level travel demand models were developed and used to explicitly model the diversion costs of closing crossings.; An integrated crossing protection decision model was developed in the second phase of this study. The model integrated estimates of the safety benefits of the three crossing protection alternatives with estimates of the total life cycle costs of the alternatives using a cost-effectiveness framework. The safety effectiveness of the barrier alternative was unknown. Consequently, sensitivity analysis was used to determine the impact of barrier safety effectiveness on the choice among the crossing protection alternatives. Finally, cost-effectiveness curves were developed that clearly identified safety versus cost trade-offs for a wide range of crossing volume conditions. The results were also compared with existing criteria-based guidelines for selecting crossing protection alternatives.