Cerema contributes to the European SAFER LC project: innovation to secure level crossings

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Surveillance and automated safety at level crossings

The tools developed (video detection, telecommunications for information exchange around the level crossing, automatic tools for diagnosis and infrastructure maintenance), thanks to this European Horizon 2020 project led by the International Union of Railways (UIC), will allow transport authorities to define consistent and common management methods for the two modes of transport, road and rail.

The safety system developed through the SAFER LC project pursues several goals:

• To increase safety and reduce risks on and around level crossings: this involves developing tools that will allow road and rail managers to detect potentially dangerous situations at level crossings as early as possible using methods of proactive detection and communication between the infrastructure and the three entities that are the approaching vehicles, the approaching train and the infrastructure manager in his management centre.

• In the event of an accident, to deal with the situations rapidly to allow traffic to resume quickly and thus limit operating costs;

• To promote predictive maintenance of infrastructure

To define a risk assessment system

1. Analysis of operators' needs, i.e. understanding what are the observed causes of accidents, especially those related to human behaviour.

2. Analysis of matches between an accident-causing context (user behaviour at LCs, specific uses of crossings) and the main accident factors.

3. Definition of technological solutions for monitoring level crossings in order to enhance reactivity in the event of an accident, but also to prevent accidents by detecting potentially dangerous situations in real time and automatically. A large part of Cerema's involvement will take place at this stage of the project. Cerema is involved, in particular, in defining a smart video surveillance system capable of assessing risks and ensuring communication between infrastructure, approaching vehicles, the approaching train and a control station by providing them with dynamic information on the condition of the crossing (accident, obstacle, etc.).

4. Finally, on-site assessments will be carried out. For Cerema, the aim will be to operate the Rouen technological platform, which allows full-scale testing, in particular in order to optimise railway track maintenance. Moreover, Cerema will likely test the full-scale monitoring system at the Aachen test site in Germany.

Subsequent steps will aim to analyse the cost-benefit ratio of the system, process the results of the project, and then implement it. The SAFER LC project received a grant of 5 million Euros, and will last until 30 April 2020.