Improving Safety at Highway-Rail Grade Crossings in Florida while Maintaining Continuity of Passenger and Freight Flows: A Multi-Objective Approach

The State of Florida is one of the most populous states in the United States. Because of this increasing population, a substantial amount of freight is transported in Florida. Rail is an important mode of freight transportation in Florida. Increasing railroad transportation-based activities have led to greater economic impacts as well as more highway-rail crossing accidents. Installation of various countermeasures at crossings will improve safety but can cause traffic delays. This project proposed a multi-objective mathematical model, which aimed to minimize the overall hazard severity and to minimize the overall traffic delay at the considered highway-rail grade crossings. A total of three solution algorithms was developed for the model, and the most effective one was identified based on the solution quality and computational time criteria. Furthermore, a standalone application “HRX Safety Improvement” was developed as a part of this project to assist the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) personnel with resource allocation for the considered highway-rail grade crossings. A set of computational experiments was performed to illustrate applicability of the proposed methodology for conducting multi-objective resource allocation. The experiments explicitly demonstrated that the developed methodology could serve as an effective decision support system for the FDOT personnel and assist with reducing the overall hazard severity and the overall traffic delay at the highway-rail grade crossings in Florida under different budget availability, countermeasure availability, hazard severity weight, and crossing type scenarios. Moreover, the introduction of alternative countermeasures, such as LED signs, could facilitate multi-objective resource allocation among highway-rail grade crossings and make it more efficient.

• Record URL:
  • https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/default-source/research/reports/fdot-bdv30-977-33-rpt.pdf?sfvrsn=17f6e14b_4
• 
• Summary URL:
  • https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/default-source/research/reports/fdot-bdv30-977-33-sum.pdf?sfvrsn=1136038a_2
• Record URL:
  • https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/62713
• Corporate Authors:

  Florida A&M University-Florida State University

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  Tallahassee, FL  United States  32310

  Florida Department of Transportation

  Office of Freight & Multimodal Operation
  Tallahassee, FL  United States  32399

  Florida Department of Transportation

  605 Suwannee Street
  Tallahassee, FL  United States  32399-0450
• Authors:
  • Dulebenets, Maxim A
  • 0000-0001-8456-9736
  • Pasha, Junayed
  • Moses, Ren
  • Sobanjo, John
  • Ozguven, Eren E
  • Singh, Prashant
• Publication Date: 2021-12-31

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; Illustrations; Maps; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 242p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision support systems; Mathematical models; Railroad grade crossings; Railroad safety; Traffic delays; Traffic safety
• Geographic Terms: Florida
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Railroads; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01850444
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 045780
• Contract Numbers: BDV30-977-33
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jun 28 2022 9:42AM