ICAP 2014 Abstract
Traffic and Transportation Psychology / Psychologie appliquée aux transports
ICAP14-ABS3811
Safety Measures Against Railway Trespass
Grigore M. Havarneanu 1,*Jean-Marie Burkhardt 2Anne Silla 3
1Security Division, International Union of Railways (UIC), Paris, 2Mobility and Behaviour Psychology Lab, The French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR), Versailles-Satory, France, 3VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland
Abstract: Background: Trespassing behaviour is a key problem for railway safety because it leads to train-pedestrian collisions with severe consequences both for the victims and the railway companies. Trespassing accidents refer to involuntary collisions between a train and a person whose presence on the railway lines is unauthorised. Such accidents result from the violation of the safety rules by pedestrians. Various measures have been proposed to reduce trespassing behaviour, but there are still no systematic reviews of such interventions, nor any integrated classification of these safety measures.
Objective: Therefore, this study aims to review the literature on the prevention of trespass in order to provide a summary of the papers which bring evidence for the effectiveness of safety measures and provide a list of recommended measures for the prevention of trespass which require additional testing in future research programs.
Method: The scientific English literature focused on the topic of railway trespass was screened and only official publications were selected for the systematic review: original published articles (empirical or theoretical), research reports and proceedings. The analysis focused on the core characteristics of the publications and the detailed information concerning the effectiveness of measures.
Results: The results revealed clear categories of recommended safety measures but very few empirical studies which bring evidence for the effectiveness of measures. Most publications bring indirect evidence based on long term accident statistics (e.g., injury data) or relatively general recommendations concerning the implementation of measures against trespass.
Discussion: The discussion is focused on (a) the combination of measures in order to reinforce the effect on behaviour, (b) the efficiency of safety measures on different types of trespassers, in different countries, in different locations or railway environments, and (c) the need for a behavioural theoretical framework applied to rail context.
Keywords: preventative measurerailway trespassingreviewviolation