Skip to main content

New guidelines on level crossing safety to help save lives

Road transport organisation the IRU, the International Union of Railways (UIC) and Operation Lifesaver Estonia (OLE) have joined forces to raise awareness about level crossing safety amongst transport professionals. Their recently-published Level Crossing Safety aims to raise awareness of professional drivers of how to avoid risks potentially leading to a collision and reduce related accidents at this key interface between road and rail infrastructure. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
May 10, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Road transport organisation the IRU, the International Union of Railways (UIC) and Operation Lifesaver Estonia (OLE) have joined forces to raise awareness about level crossing safety amongst transport professionals.

Their recently-published Level Crossing Safety aims to raise awareness of professional drivers of how to avoid risks potentially leading to a collision and reduce related accidents at this key interface between road and rail infrastructure.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) 1968 Convention on Road Traffic and the Highway Code, states that “trains have priority, whilst road users and pedestrians must comply with road signs and signals in order to cross safely and consequently prevent any collision arising from misuse or inappropriate behaviour and potentially endangering train passengers, crew and other users.”

Global freight and passenger traffic, both road and rail, have increased markedly in recent decades, increasing the risks of collisions at level crossings and, in addition to raising driver awareness, the three organisations hope to enhance knowledge and safety in their design and use.

Related Content

  • US ushers in reforms with new transportation bill
    November 9, 2012
    On behalf of ITS America, Paul Feenstra maps out implications and opportunities for the ITS industry. A critical milestone was reached last month when the US Congress passed, and President Obama signed, legislation reauthorising the nation’s surface transportation programmes, breaking a nearly three-year log-jam which had stymied critical transportation reforms and delayed much-needed infrastructure projects. The law, numbered P.L. 112-141 but known as MAP-21 (Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century),
  • The weighty problem of truck routing enforcement
    March 17, 2015
    The growing impact of heavy commercial vehicles on urban and interurban highway infrastructures around the world is driving the need for reliable route access restriction and monitoring. The support role of enforcement is proving fertile ground for ITS development. Bridges are especially vulnerable – and critical in terms of travel delays. The US state of Oregon’s Department of Transportation (ODOT) operates what it claims is one of the country’s most aggressive truck route restriction enforcement programme
  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin