Tuesday, October 19, 2004 (Washington, DC) The Federal Railroad Administration will partner with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway in a $482,000 federally funded research project using locomotive mounted digital video cameras to capture real-time data of actual highway-rail grade crossing collisions and trespass incidents.

The project will collect video of thousands of miles of railroad operations and analyze both accidents and near misses. This type of data has never before been available for research purposes. The grant funding announced today will be used for examination and analysis of the data collected.

North Carolina DOT has installed video cameras on its Piedmont passenger train that operates daily between Raleigh and Charlotte. Norfolk Southern has video cameras on about 850 freight locomotives that operate in 22 states, the District of Columbia, and Ontario, Canada.

The study will determine what human factors are involved in grade crossing collisions and trespass incidents. It also will evaluate the performance and effectiveness of current safety improvements made as part of North Carolina’s Sealed Corridor Initiative, an aggressive effort to eliminate grade crossing hazards along a proposed future high-speed passenger rail route.

FRA data shows that about 96 percent of all rail-related fatalities each year are due to vehicle-train collisions or railroad trespass incidents.

“The project results will be used to develop more effective safety measures to better protect lives at grade crossings and prevent trespass incidents throughout the country,” said Acting FRA Administrator Betty Monro.

"Norfolk Southern has been the rail industry leader in the development and implementation of locomotive video technology," said Dr. John M. Samuels, Norfolk Southern's senior vice president Operations Planning and Support. "RailView technology has tremendous public safety benefits, and the Federal Railroad Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation should be commended for their participation and support." “North Carolina has long emphasized improvements in railroad safety,” said North Carolina Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary David King. “Through pro-active initiatives such as our Sealed Corridor program and partnerships with communities across the state to close or consolidate crossings, we have significantly reduced the number of deaths and injuries in the past decade.”

Monro also announced a $795,000 grant to support the design and construction of a pedestrian underpass in the town of Clayton located southeast of Raleigh. It will provide a safe, secure, and convenient path for pedestrians from a residential neighborhood to reach the downtown area with its grocery stores, shopping, jobs, and government offices.

The underpass will be used as a model of how a smart investment can dramatically improve rail safety. Not only will pedestrians be separated from train traffic along a section of track that has a history of trespass incidents, it also will increase safety at other locations by allowing for the closure of three additional grade crossings.

These projects are just the most recent examples of efforts supported by the FRA to improve safety at the nation’s 251,000 public and private grade crossings and reduce trespass incidents. Since 1994, there has been a 41 percent decrease in the number of train-vehicle collisions and a 47 percent reduction in the number of grade crossing fatalities.