Senate Bill 1512, which was passed into law by the 74th State Legislature in 1995, requires the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to install and operate automated highway-railroad grade crossing enforcement systems as a demonstration project. Six sites with gates, relatively high traffic and train volumes, and a minimum number of accidents, were selected for the demonstration study. Potential vendors responded to a formal request for proposals to demonstrate their abilities. Because of problems encountered at three sites, automated enforcement equipment was installed and demonstrated at three (rather than six) sites in Texas by two vendors. The equipment at the sites photographed vehicles violating the gate arms. The information was then sent to a processing center either in the form of a film canister or as a data file over a voice-grade phone line. Once at the processing center, the violation was confirmed by a clerk, who then recorded the license plate number of the vehicle and the vehicle's characteristics. After the vehicle owner information was provided by TxDOT's motor vehicle registration department, the vendor took the necessary steps to have an education letter produced. At one site, the vendor mailed the letter, and at the other two sites, the information was provided to the local police department for processing. The project clearly demonstrated that automated enforcement equipment can be used at highway-railroad grade crossings to record violations, identify the license plate and owner of the vehicle, and mail educational materials.

This document provides guidance recommendations and supporting material to assist designers and implementers of intelligent transportation system (ITS) applications related to highway-rail intersections (HRI). The guidance focuses specifically on roadway user human factors requirements associated with ITS as applied to HRIs. The guidance is intended to be of immediate help to practitioners but also to serve as a resource and impetus toward the development of consensus standards and other more formal guidance or specification. The document has four parts. Part I describes the purpose and scope and provides a human factors conceptualization of the roadway user. Part II provides an overview of ITS applications that have been implemented at HRIs. Part III presents general human factors guidance that cuts across various specific HRI applications, for topics such as message factors, roadside displays, in-vehicle displays, and displays for pedestrians. Part IV presents guidance for specific HRI applications, including train arrival warnings, advance information about the HRI, enforcement and control of vehicles, and light rail transit. Each guidance chapter provides background on the topic, an explicit statement of the major human factors issues, and a set of guidance recommendations (with accompanying rationale for each). This report includes over 130 guidance recommendations.

Presents a review of the current practices associated with the operation of traffic signals at intersections located near highway-rail grade crossings.