Vehicle and Pedestrian Safety at Light Rail Stops in Mixed Traffic

A significant flaw in light rail safety research is the omission of mixed traffic (or streetcar) environments despite evidence that these are a major safety challenge. The safety impacts of new tram stop designs in Melbourne, Australia, with one of the world's largest streetcar systems, were reviewed. A major finding was that 82% of safety incidents associated with streetcars were auto-pedestrian conflicts. Previous research did not consider these conflicts accidents and identified poor monitoring of such incidents. Before-and-after analysis shows that new platform stops reduced collision rates: auto-pedestrian (62%) and auto-tram stop (12%). Tram-pedestrian collisions did not change except at the busiest stop, where total incidents were reduced by 53%, but tram-pedestrian rates increased. However, patronage growth increased exposure at this stop. An alternative, poorer quality, incident database also showed a decline in tram-pedestrian (10%) and auto-tram stop (25%) incident rates after platform stops we...