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This is
your International
NewsLetter

Happy New Year!

Railspectech insists on wishing every one our most sincere Best Wishes for 2014. May this New Year bring to you all the Success you work for, all the Health you need and all the Peace Earth deserves.

Very
unfortunately
accidents
at
road-rail
level crossings
happen.

Security at Level Crossings

As 2014 comes along, what a better time of the year to reiterate efforts have to be made in order to save lives. One fatality remains too many.

Every year, more than 400 people are killed in over 1,200 accidents at road-rail level crossings in European Union countries alone. Based on statistics collected from several countries, the level crossing with the highest risk is type: automatic LC equipped with visual warnings for road users. Few level crossing accidents demonstrate decreasing trends. In several cases an increasing trend exist. Obviously, the human factor element should be incorporated into the investigation together with any technological effects.

Collisions between road and railway vehicles happen for diverse reasons: road users disobedience the LC protection system does not detect the approaching train the gate keeper do not close the LC on time (manually controlled full barriers) train driver is not informed about the LC failure state missing train audible warning unprotected LC reduced visibility missing preventive information.

Humans by their very nature make mistakes. It should come as no surprise that the human factor has been identified to be the source of 90% of LC accidents. SELCAT (Safer European Level Crossing Appraisal and Technology) works confirm that designing new technologies robust to human errors should be an absolute priority. Post accidents databases should be designed to gather data about human error and new investigative methods should be developed in order to leverage this data and understand and reduce human error while designing new technologies. For SELCAT the level crossing activation with surveillance signal is best as it is easy to understand, simple in its logic and
independent from any signal box technology. The activation of the safety system occurs via radio communication when the train reaches the location for the activation of the safety system. The distance of this location to the location of the surveillance signal depends on:

• The time necessary to switch on the red light for road traffic,
• The time necessary to verify that the danger zone is free of obstacles,
• The time to lower the barriers and confirm that the level crossing is secured, and
• Current speed of train, distance covered in time to secure the level crossing.

The combination of the level crossing activation type and the proposed obstacle detection system lead to the following design of a better level crossing. It uses the following components:

1 Video analysis system (computer / algorithm);
2 Antenna for communication;
3 Communication system (track side, train side);
4 Level crossing safety system;
5 Video sensor (camera);
6 Velocity-depending location of level crossing activation;
7 Surveillance signal (pre-existing);
8 GNSS based train positioning

Is this the new norm/regulation/system to be applied worldly as transportation practices tend to merge ? If this gets proven an undisputed effective globally money saver as much for insurance companies and associated governments expenses of all kinds, railroads may very well be asked to jump in a similar total system so as to bring more security to level crossings.

EBI Gate 2000 level crossing system
Bombardier Transportation Group has completed testing the EBI Gate 2000 level crossing system in Zmigród, Poland with success. When integrated, the system is capable of receiving information about an obstacle on the level crossing that can be useful in alerting crossing, station or train personnel. The successful testing will provide the foundation to develop a mechanism to inform the train driver about the need to brake.

Road-rail Level crossing

New warnings
An improvement test these six months at rail level crossings to increase safety for motorists in Australia. A radio break-in device has been installed in 22 trains and 23 vehicles identified as regularly using these crossings. The device alerts motorists if there is a train approaching the crossing by wirelessly detecting the vehicle’s location in relation to the train and then uses the vehicle’s radio to broadcast a warning announcement.

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2115, Charles-Daudelin, Suite 4, Longueuil, Quebec, J4N 0B9, Canada

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This is your Railspectech International NewsLetter

Two subjects are in:
- The Land Air-Bus,
- Cities and Urban transit.

A 5-minute reading.
______________________________________

The Land Air-Bus

The Land Air-Bus (LAB)

In 2010 TBS, ( A China based company) designed a vehicle that rolled over traffic. Recently, it proposed a video of a B concept that is longer than the initial one but very attractive for the eye.

The Land Air-Bus aims at diminishing traffic in cities. It uses the main structural roads of a city. The installation of the Land Air-Bus needed infrastructure is facilitated, easily built on the existing road structures. Many obstruct the qualities of the concept arguing trucks and buses will not be able to pass through the LAB. Others advance that reorganizing traffic rules will be largely too complicated for the common driver, pedestrians.

Although, some of the above may be true, the LAB concept, not new from a strict technological standpoint, has many qualities. It will be cheaper than digging for a subway, metro line. It will be maneuverable as it appears flexible and light. Overlay stations may be numerous and built at a reasonable cost. It uses the actual infrastructure and minimizes expenses. It seems to be a fair replacement for a Tram vehicle directly operating at vehicle obstruction level.

We are being told every day that cities are growing in population and in numbers as well. This demographic tendency is not seen to stop for a couple decades ahead. Circulation, massive congestion, are unproductive and costly.

Knowing all that, will the LAB win its bet. Is the concept sufficiently good to be adapted and be launched somewhere in Sao Paulo, Mexico, London, Paris, Delhi, Shanghai, Los Angeles or New York? Many answer Yes to that question.

And you? Do you see the Land Air-Bus good enough to give it a try? To be purchased by city authorities in the World ? Can the LAB win a clear responsibility beside actual transportation systems in our cities, soon ?

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Cities and Urban transit

Since the end of the 19th Century, cities have never stopped growing. A heavy tendency that is not seen to slowdown within any foreseeable future. Mass transit is not luxury, it has become an obvious necessity.

Since 1990, driven car miles have stagnated in all OECD countries. Since 2000, it has started to decline in 75% of those countries. As cities grow in size and population, with suburb areas reaching tens of miles in distance from city centers, so has to follow public mass transit.

With new jobs emerging further and further away from central cities, more and more workers have difficulty accessing job site, training and other services such as childcare because of inadequate transportation.

In addition, many minimum wage jobs require working evening or weekend hours, but traditional transportation systems often do not serve their routes
during these times.

Access to affordable transportation for low-income workers, elderly rural residents, and children makes the trip to work, school, and medical appointments
possible.

It fosters self-sustainability, promotes independence, and permits spending on other household essentials.

Given these benefits, and the environmental ones relative to pollution, space, and else, how much of a priority should urban mass transit obtain from municipal, regional and state governments? Do you believe, urban mass transit is developing at a fair pace for all of these objectives to be met?

Contribute. Give your opinion.
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High Speed Trains Benefit

The World Bank has released a new study confirming that conventional analysis of the benefits for HS (High Speed) Train projects are obsolete.

Increased flow of ideas and people, emulation of newly linked economic zones are to become just as important benefits and tangible positive outcomes as traditional ones.

Its researchers argue that wider economic benefits should be examined just as the regular ones. For example, increased flow of ideas and people as well as emulation of newly linked regional economic areas.

Based on this research and other ones, the Bank has begun to pilot a methodology to evaluate wider economic development benefits for several high speed rail projects, and has found them to be significant - of the same order as direct transport benefits.

Crucially, these benefits of larger and better connected markets accrue to businesses and individuals even when they themselves do not travel as the flow of ideas and people accelerate.

The paper highlights this research and methodology and some of the policy implications to maximize these benefits in practice.

Gerald Olivier, World Bank’s Senior Transport Specialist working on the high speed rail program in China gave an example. "Look at the case of Zhengzhou on the 2,298 km Beijing to Guangzhou line opened on December 26,” he said. “In the past, in a three hour conventional train journey on this line, about three million people from Anyang, Xinxiang and Handancan reach Zhengzhou; today, with the opening of the new high speed line, this number will surge to 28 million people from eight cities.

These cities will start to work more closely together as a return trip within a day will be within reach.

The impact in terms of economic exchanges, accessibility, and productivity gains are expected to be significant, and extend beyond traditional transport savings.

"The scale and scope of the Chinese high speed rail program offer a unique opportunity to try to measure such impacts.", says Olivier.

Of course, many of the benefits identified by the World Bank are not confined to high-speed rail investment. In the U.S., investment in conventional-speed rail and public transit –particularly long-distance trains and trains and transit systems serving small towns and rural areas—provides a wide array of benefits not currently accounted for in transportation planning.

For that reason, the work being done by the World Bank will be crucial in moving the needle on the way transportation is funded.