International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD)
13th edition – June 10, 2021
Call for papers
The ILCAD launch conference, postponed from 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 outbreak, which was to be hosted by Network Rail at the National Railway Museum of York and held as a face-to-face event, has again been cancelled for the same reasons. Nevertheless, it will be held remotely.
Therefore, Network Rail and the International Union of Railways (UIC) are pleased to be co-organising an online international conference to launch the 13th International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD) on June 10, 2021.
This conference attracts railway industry representatives, road authorities, academics, and many others from around the world who are working to raise awareness about the dangers surrounding level crossings.
It is planned to organise interpretation between English and possibly Spanish, perhaps also French. Presentations in another language would be welcomed to widen the reach and scope for sharing the great work done by railways and highway authorities across the globe. We will choose the possible second and third languages according to the papers offered. To submit a paper please use the form at the end of this article.
For information the main ILCAD 2020 online conference held in English, gathered around 150 participants from 40 countries from all around the world (Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, South Korea, Middle East, Africa, USA, Central and South America). We had speakers from the road and the rail sectors from Europe, USA, New Zealand and Africa to share information on their activities on road or rail safety.
On the same day 400 people attended the Spanish-language conference organised by UIC’s Argentinian contacts at UTN-BA National University of Technology – Faculty of Buenos Aires (Universidad Tecnológica Nacional - Facultad Regional Buenos Aires) and IAF, the Argentinian Institute of Railways (Instituto Argentino de Ferrocarriles).
The ILCAD 2021 worldwide campaign will be maintained in a scale-down format, similar to 2020, due to the pandemic. Usually about 40 countries participate in the campaign, either by relaying it on their websites or on social media, or by organising a range of activities around ILCAD day.
The ILCAD 2021 theme is the “Distraction” with the motto “Distraction kills !”
Last year perhaps due to the remote event it was very refreshing to hear from new contributors from different continents. Therefore, we would this year again like to invite both established and new participants to share details of their work to make level crossings safer and combat user distraction.
The themes of the remote conference :
- Technology – What technologies could help to educate people, raise awareness, and ultimately prevent accidents at level crossings ?
- Distractions – We live in an age of multi-tasking, with distractions coming from smartphones, video-games, and other electronic gadgets, as well as stress, fatigue and other factors. One might be also distracted because of an appointment to respect, kids to pick up at school, a train to catch.
What new initiatives are there to counter ubiquitous distractions ?
- Enforcement/Regulations – joint initiatives of the railways, with local authorities, police forces to encourage people to respect the highway code.
- Community outreach – What are the best means of making people aware of the safety risks at crossings ?
Contact :
• Isabelle Fonverne : fonverne@uic.org at UIC
• Robert Wainwright : Robert.Wainwright@networkrail.co.uk at Network Rail
For more info :
Visithttp://www.ilcad.org
Visit https://uic.org/safety/safety-at-level-crossings/
ILCAD 2020 online conference in English ; read : https://uic.org/com/enews/nr/696
ILCAD 2020 online conference in Spanish watch : https://youtu.be/ISS2usZGKqY
Should you wish to submit an abstract please use the form below. Deadline : May 3, 2021