SUMMARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION RAIL-HIGHWAY CROSSING ACCIDENT PREDICTION FORMULAS AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION MODEL

The Highway Safety Acts of 1973 and 1976, and the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978, provide funding authorizations to individual states to improve safety at public rail-highway crossings. The installation of active motorist warning devices, such as flashing lights or flashing lights with gates, is an important part of crossing safety improvements. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) assists states and railroads in determining effective allocations of Federal funds for rail-highway crossing safety improvements. This report describes the resource allocation procedure developed to assist in the allocation of funds among crossings to achieve maximum crossing safety benefits for a given level of funding. The procedure consists of two parts. The first is an accident prediction formula which computes the expected number of accidents at each crossing. The second part is a resource allocation model designed to nominate crossings for improvement consideration on a cost-effective basis and to suggest the type of warning device to be installed.