Skip to main content

LED road studs aid level crossing safety

Active LED solar road studs supplied by Rennicks UK have been granted a Certificate of Acceptance by the authority responsible for the UK’s railways, paving the way for the studs to be installed at level crossings around the country. Rennicks say that the road studs are an intuitive signal to pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in the approach to and crossing the track. The studs use dual LEDs with an internal prismatic system for high performance and solar/battery technology for environmental sustaina
June 16, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Active LED solar road studs supplied by Rennicks UK have been granted a Certificate of Acceptance by the authority responsible for the UK’s railways, paving the way for the studs to be installed at level crossings around the country.

Rennicks say that the road studs are an intuitive signal to pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in the approach to and crossing the track.

The studs use dual LEDs with an internal prismatic system for high performance and solar/battery technology for environmental sustainability. They create a brightly illuminated indication of the length and width of the crossing surface edges and are effective for both drivers and pedestrians during night-time hours or poor weather conditions.

According to Rennicks, the studs could be used as part of the measures designed to improve rail crossing safety following the publication of a report by the Transport Select Committee warning that many hundreds of crossings still pose an ‘unacceptable’ danger to the public. The Office of Rail Regulation, which is responsible for rail safety, is calling for innovative solutions such as the use of new technology, while MPs have been looking into a range of proposals to reduce risk, developed by experts at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and Transport Research Laboratory (491 TRL).

John Swift, Rennicks UK national sales manager, believes active LED road studs, said to be far more effective than traditional reflective units, can now provide part of the solution.

He said: “By granting a Certificate of Acceptance for the LED studs, 5021 Network Rail are showing they’re considering changes very carefully by using new technology that maybe wasn’t available before. We believe the use of these studs along with other measures, such as improved signage, can help reduce risk by providing better and intuitive information.”

“The studs are also Type Approved by the UK 1837 Department for Transport for road use, which means local authorities can now work with the same solution on the approaches to the crossings. This aids level crossings around the country providing key decision points for all users traversing a level crossing at night.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • ITS needs continuity at the policy-making level
    February 1, 2012
    ITS needs to be sold to politicians in plainer terms and we need to be encouraging greater continuity at the policy-making level says Josef Czako, chairman of the IRF's Policy Committee on ITS. At the ITS World Congress in New York in 2008, the International Road Federation (IRF) held the inaugural meeting of its Policy Committee on ITS. The Policy Committee's formation, says its chairman, Kapsch's Josef Czako, reflects an ongoing concern over the lack of deployment of ITS technology on roads in anything li
  • Mobinet counters weighty cross border concerns
    November 9, 2017
    A Mobinet pilot is combining onboard weighing with V2X comms to streamline vehicle weight enforcement. David Crawford reports. Pan-European, cross-border weigh-in-motion (WIM) for trucks is now a practical possibility, following successful Scandinavian trials within the EU-co-funded Mobinet (Internet of Mobility) programme. New technology is using strain sensors, located on load-bearing components and routinely installed in truck fleet management systems.
  • Autonomous driving – what can we really expect?
    June 6, 2016
    Dave Marples of Technolution BV looks beyond the hype to the practical implementation of autonomous vehicles. Having looked at the development of this sector for some time, I am concerned about the current state of autonomous driving development as engineering (and marketing) have run way ahead of the wider systemic, and legislative, requirements to support an autonomous future.
  • Managed motorways, hard shoulder running aids safety, saves time
    January 30, 2012
    The announcement that, in 2012/13, work to extend Managed Motorways to Junctions 5-8 of the M6 near Birmingham in the West Midlands is scheduled to start marks the next step for the UK's hard shoulder running concept, first introduced on the M42 in 2006. The M6 scheme is in fact one of several announced; over the next few years work will start on applying Managed Motorways to various sections of the M1, M25 London Orbital, M60 and M62. According to Paul Unwin, senior project manager with the Highways Agency