Chair: Gemma Lavery, RSSB
Vice Chair: Gerard Pool, ProRail
UIC Coordinator: Isabelle Fonverne
Members: We are 60 members from Europe, Canada, USA, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. It includes railway infrastructure managers, road infrastructure managers, human behaviour specialists, academics, road safety advocates, etc.
Meetings: 2 to 3 times a year
with its main outcome: final report published in EN/FR/RU https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2017/wp1/ECE-TRANS-WP1-2017-4e.pdf https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2017/wp1/ECE-TRANS-WP1-2017-4f.pdf https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2017/wp1/ECE-TRANS-WP1-2017-4r.pdf
View on shop.uic.org Description
One of the biggest risks on railways across the world is where trains and road vehicles or people both use intersections known as ‘grade or ‘level’ crossings. The international railway community shares best practice through UIC’s Global Level Crossing Network (GLCN) and promotes safe use each year with an International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD). Other campaigns and the Safer LC toolbox help rail and road authorities to reduce the number of incidents and fatalities at the world’s level crossings.
The UIC Safety Platform proposed that GLCN should identify best practice for risk assessment of grade/level crossings and promote adoption by member railways. This guide provides the best practice identified by that work.
The workstream was completed in two phases:
Phase 1 – Review current global working practices
Phase 2 – Creation of a best practice document
With the help of UIC members, the GLCN has identified “Seven Principles for Risk Assessing Level Crossings” which are highlighted in this document.
French version: Meilleure pratique pour l’évaluation des risques aux passages à niveau
Spanish version: Buenas prácticas para la evaluación de riesgos en pasos a nivel
Each year almost 300 road users or pedestrians die in level crossing accidents (EU-28), causing economic damage estimated at €1 billion (ERA report on railway safety and interoperability in the EU - 2020). Of these fatalities, 98% are attributed to deliberate or undeliberate errors by the road users, either vehicle drivers or pedestrians.
Despite this, society still labels most fatal accidents at level crossings as a rail problem.
The rail community regards this as a particular problem largely because it is not possible to anticipate the actions of individual road vehicle drivers and pedestrians at level crossings despite a range of risk control measures. The actions and misuse by members of the public throughout Europe disproportionately account for over 25% of ALL accidents and 29% of all rail fatalities affecting safe rail operation.
Clearly this is a significant risk area for the rail sector.
However, of all road deaths in the EU (22,800 in 2019), only 1% occur at level crossings. So a significant risk to the safe operation of the rail network is in fact only a small element of the overall road safety issue.
ELCF (European Level Crossing Forum) From 2021, due to the growing global dimension taken by ELCF, it was decided to change its name and logo. ELCF became GLCN (Global Level Crossing Network).
SAFER-LC project SAFER-LC (Safer Level Crossing by integrating and optimising road-rail infrastructure management and design) project coordinated by UIC aims to improve safety and minimise risk by developing a fully integrated cross-modal set of innovative solutions and tools for the proactive management and design of level-crossing infrastructure. Visit SAFER-LC project website: https://safer-lc.eu/
“Act safely at level crossings!”
The International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD) is an awareness campaign on level crossing safety. The campaign has been spearheaded by the International Union of Railways (UIC) with the support of the railway community around the world from 2009. A growing number of road sector organisations, international institutions (UNECE, IRU…) have also been involved in raising awareness of the risks at level crossings to change road users’ and pedestrians’ behaviour to “Act safely at level crossings”. Each year, a partner country hosts an international conference to launch the annual event. Each participant shares good practices and projects to increase safety, thereby contributing to lowering the number of accidents and casualties.
Visit ILCAD website: https://ilcad.org/
UIC Coordinator: Isabelle Fonverne
