Increasing rail safety through automated, drone-enabled evaluation of rail grade crossings

Abstract: For 2023, the FRA reported 2,192 total Highway-Rail incidents that led to 247 fatalities and 766 injuries. Portion of these incidents are caused by inappropriate vertical design or inadequate sight distance triangles. Conditions where vehicles can become stuck on the highway-rail grade crossing are especially of concern, such as areas with low-ground clearance issues, known as "humped crossings". A prominent example is the 2017 incident in Biloxi, MS, where a motor coach that became stuck on a humped crossing was struck by a freight train, resulting in four deaths and 37 injuries. Uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) or "drones" have the ability to rapidly collect high-resolution aerial imagery that can be used to created 3D profile data, useful for humped crossing evaluations, sightline adequacy analysis, and sign inventory. The MTRI Inc. - Michigan Tech team, with USDOT and Michigan funding, developed the Crossing-i drone-enabled solution for automated analysis of highway rail grade crossing safety. The presentation will overview this work, including describing how UAS analysis results can be made available online in a web mapping interface useful for helping with virtual diagnostic meetings. This detailed rail grade crossing information can save time, increase safety, and provide repeatable results useful when transportation agencies and rail firms are deciding which crossings need maintenance or would be appropriate for closure. Rail grade crossing data have been collected at over 80 crossings in six states, and examples will be presented. Plans to make drones more widely available for rail safety assessments will be described.