Railway Gate Control System at Railroad-Highway Grade Crossing in Korea

Railroad-related accidents are more dangerous than other transportation accidents in terms of severity and death rate etc. Therefore more efforts are necessary for improving safety. In the mean time, Korean national railroad has researched and invested continuously such as intelligent safety equipments and level crossing between railroad and highway for decreasing railroad-related accident and increasing safety. The purpose of this study is about railway gate control system and its safety effects at railroad-highway grade crossing in Korea. Operation principle of railway gate control system is as follows; first, magnetic sensors recognize movement direction of automobile, willing to pass the railway crossing. Second, time difference control of barrier makes to stop gateway barrier for some time to let trapped vehicle can get away safely from railway crossing. Image recording system can record and play railway crossing situation. There were no accidents in 5 lines of total lines after installed gate delay control system in Korea. In addition, accidents in Jung-Ang and Gyeong-Eui lines decreased to its half and more where most accident happened lines in Korea. As a whole, this system brings the effect of decreasing accident about 68.6% of total rail accidents. By this study, railway gate control system has a big effect for reducing accident at railroad-highway grade crossing. And sustainable installation and operation are necessary. For the future study, some analysis such as net analysis and econometrics analysis of railway crossing accident is needed, because of lack of data. Also, it needs to study about railway crossing integrated management system.