Accidents Analysis And Prediction On Highway-Railway Grade Crossings

To improve the traffic safety in HRXs (the highway-railway grade crossings), the dissertation aims to explore and analyze the causes of the accidents that taken place at the highway-railroad level crossings in hoping to define the main factors that may influence the level-crossings safety, to analyze the characteristics and the orderliness of level crossing accidents, to predict the frequency combined with accident prediction models for highway-rail interfaces and to work out necessary effective countermeasures for the situation improvements.As the state statistics show, in the past five years, that is, from 2000 to 2004, there were 1,306 people killed and more injured at the HRXs in China. The author introduced the background of research on railroad crossings safety and the accident prediction firstly. Based on the statistics of the accidents and comparison of the cases of the railroad level crossing accidents between China and some other countries, particularly the developed countries, the paper has made a safety analysis on HRXs, including human factors, vehicle factors, features of the safety measures provided in this connection, safety installations and facilities, management and control over the environmental factors.The dissertation has made the accidents prediction from the macroscopical and microcosmic perspective separately combined with the level-crossing facts in China and the methods of accidents prediction for railroad grade crossings. It includes:1. the application of gray model GM (1, 1) in predicting the number of level crossing accidents in the next few years in national railroad system;2. the concrete HRXs'accidents frequency prediction at Ximazhuang and the risk assessment according to the characteristics of the HRXs and the U. S. DOT accident prediction model for HRXs for reference. What's more, the paper has analyzed the causes and distribution of accidents in some railway level crossings in Beijing.The results have shown that: (1) Drunk driving, speed and overtired driving are the main causes leading to the level crossing accidents; (2)Vehicle malfunctions, overloaded freight are also key factors liable to level crossing accidents; (3) The characteristics of HRXs geometrical and bump sloping or turning factors, such as road gradients, sight distance, etc. are also likely to account for accidents in HRXs; (4) Timely given traffic...