"Safely Alignment for Egyptian Railway Grade Crossing"

Abstract

At-grade crossing is one of the most important and the most dangerous sections on railway track, it represents point of conjunctions for the road network with the railway network, Accidents rate on at-grade crossing represents about half the total accidents in Egypt Railways. The research settled for the relative severity evaluation of at-grade crossing according to a practical and scientific standard by suggesting an approach methodology suitable for the Egyptian street circumstances and behavior without studying in detail the alignment and operating at-grade crossing. The following methodology is followed: 1) Collecting data on at-grade crossings from Egyptian National Railway) ENR) during 2004 – 2014. 2) Selecting the most sever at-grade crossings which have two accidents or more had been occurred during the study period (2004-2014). Accordingly, there were only 24 at-grade crossings. 3) Calculating the Average Annual Train Traffic (AATT) at chosen at-grade crossings with high severity according to the official time table of trains run on Lower and Upper Egypt (July 2013). 4) Classifying the relative severity index due to material losses and delay for the chosen at-grade crossings and rearranging them according to rank of material losses severity. 5) Monetary evaluating the fatalities and injuries at at-grade crossings. 6) Classifying the relative severity index due to fatalities and injuries losses for the chosen at-grade crossings and rearranging them according to rank of human losses severity. 7) Reclassifying the development priority the at-grade crossings based on the degree of severity as the mathematical mean for rank of material losses and rank of human losses. 8) Analyzing development data for at-grade crossing from ENR. 9) Estimating the relative severity for the developing at-grade crossings before and after the development for only the last two years 2014 and 2015. 10) Calculating a reduction factor for the relative severity after the development. Statistically, this sample is too small to be a base of results as accidents takes place randomly and not because of poor planning as it is a result of bad human behavior. To achieve the mentioned objectives, this thesis is divided into five chapters, which can be summarized as the following: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Includes the problem definition, the research objectives and summarizes the thesis contents. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Review of the most recent research effort pertains securing of rail at-grade crossing. CHAPTER 3: DEFINITIONS AND SPECIFICATIONS Consists of terms which use in the thesis and collected data from both ENR and international codes and deals with surface, planning of at-grade crossing, signs for vehicles and pedestrian, levels of protection and pavement markings.

CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY TO CLASSIFY AT-GRADE CROSSINGS SEVERITY Presents classification at-grade crossing according to its severity and comparing between the official ENR plans for at-grade crossing development to the proposed classification. CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the obtained results extracted conclusions and recommendations are presented in this chapter. Also, possible areas for further future studies are suggested. Keywords: At-grade crossings, At-grade crossing accidents, Egyptian National Railway, Relative Severity, Train traffic, Injuries, Fatalities