The paper presents issues related to improving safety at unguarded railway crossings through the use of an additional driver warning system based on public wireless transmission standards. The mathematical analyses of the models developed for this purpose were based on Markov processes, and the obtained simulation results confirm the validity of such a solution. Category D railway crossings, as places where two traffic flows—rail and road—intersect at the same level, are the source of many tragic accidents. At such crossings, one of the factors threatening road traffic safety is the failure of drivers to exercise special caution when visibility of an approaching train is poor due to adverse weather conditions or terrain features. In order to reduce the occurrence of dangerous situations at category D crossings, actions are taken to increase safety by introducing additional methods of warning drivers.
An example of a system informing about an approaching train is equipping crossings with additional early warning devices for drivers. The essence of the proposed additional warning system is the use of widely available wireless network standards such as WiMax, WSN, and Wi-Fi (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, Wireless Sensor Network, Wireless Fidelity) for message transmission.
An important factor in determining the safety level of a railway crossing is the analysis of accidents that have occurred there, their causes, consequences, and the probabilities of their occurrence. The article presents mathematical models for analyzing events occurring at crossings, and simulation studies were conducted based on these models. For this purpose, stochastic processes in the form of Markov processes were used, modeling the operation of category D crossings and category D crossings equipped with an additional driver warning system. (…)
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Source: Logistyka Magazine