The University of NebraskaLincoln Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Test Bed

Elizabeth G. Jones
Assoc. Professor of Civil Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Mid-America Transportation Center

Railroad Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

On-going railroad research sponsored by Federal Railroad Administration
Real-time measurement of track stiffness Wireless communication systems Highway-rail grade crossings (level crossings) Several other smaller projects

Long Term Goals of Project

Eliminate crashes at grade crossings related to highway traffic operations Integrate highway and rail systems

Research Objectives
Develop permanent and portable test bed systems for detailed study of highway-rail interactions at highway-rail grade crossings (HRGCs) Demonstrate test beds

HRGC Test Bed Development

Test Bed Selection Criteria Crossing near signalized intersection High potential for traffic to back up on tracks High potential for traffic delayed by trains to interfere with other traffic History of past accidents at crossing Interest of city traffic engineer Existing infrastructure

HRGC Selected Test Bed Characteristics

35th & Cornhusker & BNSF
Crossing near signalized intersection YES High potential for traffic to back up on tracks YES High potential for traffic delayed by trains to interfere with other traffic YES History of past accidents at crossing YES
FRA database indicates 2 accidents in five years

Interest of city traffic engineer YES proposed quiet zone

Proposed Quiet Zone in Lincoln, NE

HRGC Selected Test Bed Characteristics

35th & Cornhusker & BNSF
Crossing near signalized intersection YES High potential for traffic to back up on tracks YES High potential for traffic delayed by trains to interfere with other traffic YES History of past accidents at crossing YES
FRA database indicates 2 accidents in five years

Interest of city traffic engineer YES proposed quiet zone Existing infrastructure YES
City of Lincoln traffic signal cabinets connected to City of Lincolns fiber network Established connection between City of Lincoln and UNLs network

UNL HRGC Test Bed

HRGC Test Bed Location

35th & Cornhusker (BNSF track double track)
High potential for traffic delayed by trains to interfere with other traffic Near signalized intersection

West View of Test Bed Grade Crossing

HRGC Test Bed Location

35th & Cornhusker (BNSF track double track)
High potential for traffic to back up on tracks

Northwest View of Test Bed Grade Crossing

Equipment at HRGC
UNL Camera aimed at HRGC Citys Camera aimed at 35th & Cornhusker

Grade Crossing Gate Traffic control cabinet with communications equipment

Looking southeast at HRGC from 35th & Cornhusker

Equipment at HRGC
Video encoder (MPEG-2) in traffic control cabinet (two video channels)

Video channel of HRGC

Video channel from City camera

Video decoder (MPEG-2) at City of Lincoln Public Works

Equipment at Upstream Locations

Video camera (day/night) Doppler radar detector

Installation of upstream equipment currently in progress

Equipment at Upstream Locations

UNL HRGC Test Bed

Video & Radar

Cornhusker
Video

Video & Radar

27th Street

HRGC Test Bed Portable System

Wireless Antenna

Van portion of portable system

Doppler Radar

Autoscope Cameras

HRGC Test Bed Portable System

Trailer portion of portable system
Calibrating Autoscope & setting detectors Wireless Antenna Autoscope Camera

UNL HRGC Research

Railroad traffic signal preemption Data archiving Human factors

Railroad Traffic Signal Preemption

Project Hypotheses
Intelligent signal preemption using train arrival information can significantly improve safety at HRGCs

Railroad Traffic Signal Preemption

Railroad signal preemption requires upstream detection of trains
Want to know when the gates close and when they open

Need to know
Speed of train upstream of HRGC If train is accelerating or decelerating Length of train

Train Speed Detection Problem

Train Speed Detection

Speed (mph)

Video detection can discriminate between trains but signal is noisy

45.0 40.0 35.0 Speed (mph) 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 0 15 30 45 60Time (sec)90 75 105 120 135

50.0 45.0 40.0 35.0 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0

Autoscope Data

Outside Track Middle Track

Radar Data

10.0 5.0 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 Time (sec) 105 120 135 150

150

Radar gets confused with more than one train and has varying noise

Current Work
Use a Kalman filter to fuse the radar and video detection speed measurements
Reduce noise in speed measurement Improve speed measurement
Radar data Video detection data

Kalman filter model

Update

Process model Estimate

Measurement model

Fused data

Current work
Simulation to test preemption algorithms using fused data
Without preemption With preemption

Simulation No preemption

Simulation Preemption

Data Archiving - Video

Video is often used in the study of HRGCs Rich source of data that can be used for many studies Rarely used for more than one study, however Archived video with systematic description can make the video data source useable for more studies Objective is to show how this can be done with a small example

Data Archiving - Video

Steps to archiving video and efficiently querying the archived video Efficiently store the video in a digital format
MPEG4 part 10 (H.264)
video compression standard specially designed to deliver high quality video at lower bit rates and smaller file sizes than previous video encoding standards

Describe video using an ontology

An ontology is a formal specification of the terms and the relations among these terms within a domain

Query database of video description that is linked to the digital video

Video Collection

Store Video in Digital Format

Describe Events on Video

Query Event Database

Used video captured for preliminary studies of HRGC from another project Limited video
Four partial days of video collection Total of 31 hours of video collected

Purpose is to demonstrate how video archiving can be done for efficient queries

Human Factors
Video archiving work detected numerous safety issues

Future Work
Human factors Intelligent automobiles
Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII)
Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I)

Quiet zones

Acknowledgements
Federal Railroad Administration
Federal Highway Administration Nebraska Department of Roads City of Lincoln, NE

Thank you!
Elizabeth G. Jones ejones1@unl.edu