Study of Human Behaviour at Indian Railway Level Crossings

Abstract

Many accidents are taking place at railway Level Crossings (L. Cs) throughout the world. Railway authorities have focused on using the improved gate control technologies and it has reduced the number of accidents to some extent. One of the important elements, i.e., the behavioral aspect of road users has received scanty attention so far. About 95 % of accidents at LCs may be attributed to inappropriate actions and negligence of the road users including pedestrians. The present study is devoted to the behavioral aspects of road users in India. The behavior and actions of the road users vary from locality to locality and thus, it is desirable to study road users’ behavior for each LC and provide suitable safety measures.

Keywords-Attention blindness; Automatic gate control; Behavioural studies; Human errors; Level crossing; Microcontroller; Pedestrians; Traffic practices.