Pedestrian Level Crossing Safety on the East West Line of Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit

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Date

2015-06

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Publisher

Addis Ababa University

Abstract

In recent years, Railway level crossing (RLC) accidents is one of the major contributing factors of railway related fatality problems in many countries. A fundamental requirement in pedestrians safety planning is the isolation of level crossings along the railway. This is normally assisted by precautions which are used to give information for every group of pedestrians. The study was done by direct observation and Census (random sampling technique by taking 15 minutes duration) to examine the flow of pedestrians and trains along the level crossings (Stations) of the newly build East-West line of Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit. From the collected data; by calculating the train pedestrian value and pedestrian category, the necessity of precautions (road markings, audible warnings, pedestrian signals, tactile threshold and guard rails) is analyzed. And also by taking the flow of pedestrians from the graph, the necessity of grade separation is analyzed. The result of the reasearch is that; Road markings, audible warnings and pedestrian signals are necessary in all stations. Since the necessity of tactile threshold is dependent on the alignment of crossings and adjacent footways, 8 out of 14 stations are isolated to construct a tactile threshold. And also the location of all railway stations is at the middle of vehicle road. So, it is unable to construct a guard rail in every station. In some areas, there is a crowded flow of pedestrians and due to that reason pedestrians are trying to use vehicle crossings as a crossing. It may create a collision between pedestrians and road vehicles due to the congestion. This study recommends the necessity of grade separations (Bridges or Tunnels) in order to avoid those accidents.

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Keywords

Railway Level Crossing, Stations, Train Pedestrian Value, Pedestrian Category, Precautions, Grade separations

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