Pedestrian and Bicyclist Trespassing Impacts on Rail Grade Crossings Safety and Mobility
Highway roads intersect with a railroad track, forming a multimodal transportation system. The intersection is called a highway railroad grade crossing (HRGC). Because of the multiple transportation operations, induced conflict at the grade crossing, crashes may happen between road users (e.g., automobiles, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.) and trains in operations at highway railroad grade crossings. This is a global challenge for many countries around the world. According to the 2022–2026 Indiana Strategic Highway Safety Plan and 2022 Indiana Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety Action Plan, one of the biggest challenges facing Indiana is the higher numbers of pedestrians in and around crossing locations and the possible eligibility of Federal funds to address nonmotorized safety concerns. This study systematically examined the grade crossing safety impacts among human factors, environmental factors, warning device conditions, and other factors through extensive site visits and data analysis. Key findings indicate that grade crossing safety is a function of multiple parameters. Different factors have various levels of contribution to the potential crashes. Crash report analysis and site visit outcomes consistently highlighted some factors’ impacts on the grade crossing safety for nonmotorized users in Indiana. Implementing the insights from this study is expected to improve grade crossing safety, mitigate potential grade crossing crashes, and optimize the budget for grade crossing upgrades and improvements.