Level crossing stupidity...

[PhilJ W]

Not forgetting the story of the Ford Pinto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto

[Titan]

4 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Not forgetting the story of the Ford Pinto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto

 

But in that case they were not choosing between different safety schemes, they were choosing between safety and profit, so not comparable.

[Nick C]

9 hours ago, Titan said:

 

But in that case they were not choosing between different safety schemes, they were choosing between safety and profit, so not comparable.

It's related though, still looking at the cost/value of safety and lives. Just look at the different attitudes to Covid lockdowns for another example - some people think that any economic cost is too much and things should carry on as normal, others think that any lives lost are too many, and most are somewhere in between. 

[Titan]

It is related, but not exactly immediate family,  and when specifically looking at methods on how to decide what safety system to spend your money on rather than maximising profits as in the pinto case then mentioning them kind of muddies the water.  Covid is a better example, but mentioning that opens the door to massive thread drift, if it has not strayed too far already!

Edited December 29, 2021 by Titan

[SamThomas]

11 hours ago, Titan said:

 

But in that case they were not choosing between different safety schemes, they were choosing between safety and profit, so not comparable.

True - anyone else remember the Arthur Hailey novel "Wheels" (I think it was called). Clearly aimed at the US Car Industry & there was a bit about a safety modification to the dashboard, steering colum of something that would cost $4.5 per car & the lawers reckoned, based on statistics that it would be cheaper to settle the lawsuits for infuries/deaths, so yes, in practical terms there is a price on human life.

 

However, in the case we are (or should be) discussing all we have is a grainy CCTV image. Surely, in the case of crossings like these the costs for even simplified interlocked gates/phone/detectors or WHY will be minimum & not the £1M's suggested. (For each one I may add before someone counds the crossings & does some maths).

 

Unfortunatly, many people seem to forget that most of us will get old & not as mobile as we once were - their views will change as they get older, slower or indeed their loved ones.

Maybe those that think that money should not be spent on safety could volunteer to take on the roles of informing people that their love one(s) will not be coming home again, ever.

 

& before it gets pointed out I'm not saying that obsene amounts of monet should be spent on protecting people that are terminally stupid.

[96701]

43 minutes ago, SamThomas said:

Surely, in the case of crossings like these the costs for even simplified interlocked gates/phone/detectors or WHY will be minimum & not the £1M's suggested. (For each one I may add before someone counds the crossings & does some maths).

Unforunately, not true for footpath, occupation and user worked crossings. The signaller (and hence the signalling system) only knows that a train is in a section, and some are many miles long containing many crossings, some only a few hundred yards apart so to split the section into chunks that could tell the signaller exactly where the train is where the £1m comes from.

[alastairq]

The important thing about safety....or rather, where safety is somehow compromised....is to learn from the near-misses, and work out what adjustments can be made to mitigate the circumstances in the future.

But people don't want to know about ''lessons learnt''....they only want to see blame.

 

I wonder if the individual concerned in the above instance, hada mobile phone?

I would consider, could they not have telephoned a signaller before crossing?  

 

I know there is a presumption in the above that everybody has a working mobile phone [and statistics very nearly support that view]....but, all the same...if phoning on a mobile was an option......eh?  

 

 

[Grovenor]

1 hour ago, 96701 said:

Unforunately, not true for footpath, occupation and user worked crossings. The signaller (and hence the signalling system) only knows that a train is in a section, and some are many miles long containing many crossings, some only a few hundred yards apart so to split the section into chunks that could tell the signaller exactly where the train is where the £1m comes from.

But today we have GPS trackers for vehicles that are not costly and will display on a phone app or google maps on your PC. That technology would not be difficult or expensive to deploy. But only useful where the users phone in. The simple case like the one at issue just needs the gates moving a meter or so further from the track, and it won't be every crossing, just those found at risk when evaluated.

[corneliuslundie]

And you cannot assume mobile phone reception in rural areas. There is a village near here with a population of around 1000 and no mobile phone reception whatsoever. Mind you no level crossing there either.

Jonathan

PS Recovering from trying to register with the HHS website which requires mobile phone reception which I do not have in the house - admittedly 2G, and I live in  a town).

Jonathan

[SamThomas]

3 hours ago, 96701 said:

Unforunately, not true for footpath, occupation and user worked crossings. The signaller (and hence the signalling system) only knows that a train is in a section, and some are many miles long containing many crossings, some only a few hundred yards apart so to split the section into chunks that could tell the signaller exactly where the train is where the £1m comes from.

GPS could be used for the  "many miles long" sections & IMHO unlikely to cost £1M/crossing.

[96701]

2 hours ago, SamThomas said:

GPS could be used for the  "many miles long" sections & IMHO unlikely to cost £1M/crossing.

No it can't. It is nowhere near accurate enough or reliable enough. People blame sat navs for telling them to turn left now and ending up on the railway line instead of the junction just after, and that is generally at 30 mph. Now try it at 70 mph and still provide enough notice to tell somebody that they are safe to cross.

 

Do you honestly believe that people haven't already tried to look for the cheapest options?

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, 96701 said:

No it can't. It is nowhere near accurate enough or reliable enough.

 

An augmented or differential GPS system can achieve sub-10 cm positional accuracy. Drawing conclusions about the accuracy and reliability of GPS-based positional measurement from the performance of commercial sat-nav systems overlooks the limitations of the receiving equipment used in those systems. They don't need to achieve the best positional accuracy as the application only really needs to know position to at most 15 m. It's like saying timekeeping isn't accurate enough because your watch loses a few seconds a day.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Compound2632

[rab]

On 28/12/2021 at 16:25, rab said:

As we seem to have gone round the circle on this one,

perhaps it's a good place to end the discussion.

Obviously not

[96701]

18 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

An augmented or differential GPS system can achieve sub-10 cm positional accuracy. Drawing conclusions about the accuracy and reliability of GPS-based positional measurement from the performance of commercial sat-nav systems overlooks the limitations of the receiving equipment used in those systems. They don't need to achieve the best positional accuracy as the application only really needs to know position to at most 15 m. It's like saying timekeeping isn't accurate enough because your watch loses a few seconds a day.

And how much does that accuracy cost, and who owns the satellites that give you that accuracy? Would they need to be fitted to every train that runs on the network, and would that information need to be in every signalling location?

 

Multiple crossings into a ROC would need several people studying mapping systems just in case somebody rings in to use a crossing.

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, 96701 said:

And how much does that accuracy cost, and who owns the satellites that give you that accuracy? Would they need to be fitted to every train that runs on the network, and would that information need to be in every signalling location?

 

Not that much in the scheme of things. There are systems in use for tracking buses. For tracking trains, then the 15 m accuracy would surely be good enough anyway since the problem has been reduced to locating an object of length greater than the position accuracy in only one dimension - the location of the railway line is known!

 

The GPS system is owned and operated by the US Government; if that worries you, one could use the European Galileo system or the Russian GLONASS.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Compound2632

[alastairq]

30 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Russian GLONASS.

 I tried that! Put me in the middle of next week!

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

An augmented or differential GPS system can achieve sub-10 cm positional accuracy. Drawing conclusions about the accuracy and reliability of GPS-based positional measurement from the performance of commercial sat-nav systems overlooks the limitations of the receiving equipment used in those systems. They don't need to achieve the best positional accuracy as the application only really needs to know position to at most 15 m. It's like saying timekeeping isn't accurate enough because your watch loses a few seconds a day.

Presently common commercial systems are about 3 metre accuracy, it was made this accurate quite a few years ago on request to the US Government from various manufacturers.

 

As you say best accuracy is down to a few centimetres, reserved so far for guess who?  

[96701]

Do sat navs work in tunnels? Just thinking of Hope under Dinmore where the trains comes out of a tunnel and crosses 3 footpath crossings in quick succession.

 

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=1f3486c4-aaa3-4541-a9d4-2f2fdb516efc&cp=52.169997~-2.726448&lvl=16&style=s&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

[ess1uk]

Just now, 96701 said:

Do sat navs work in tunnels? 

No

[Michael Hodgson]

22 minutes ago, 96701 said:

Do sat navs work in tunnels? Just thinking of Hope under Dinmore where the trains comes out of a tunnel and crosses 3 footpath crossings in quick succession.

 

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=1f3486c4-aaa3-4541-a9d4-2f2fdb516efc&cp=52.169997~-2.726448&lvl=16&style=s&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

Doesn't preclude use of GPS.  If you develop a system that tracks it before it enters the tunnel you know it is already unsafe to cross before the train has gone to ground. 

 

And if you're going to use this approach for a large number of crossings, you really do need a system to help the crossing controller in order to be sufficiently safe to advise a crossing user - in case it has failed to be detected for any reason whatever - where last seen just  isn't good enough.  You have to identify and time a train when it entered the section (or reached some timing point) and to determine it as either not having been in section long enough to be a problem or to have already passed the crossing. 

 

That's essentially what the signaller is currently having to decide, and is where human error is occurring.  It is analogous to the system in the old days, when a crossing keeper on a minor road was often provided with block instrument/bell repeaters, and given written instructions depending on distance from adjacent block posts along the lines of

"Up trains, do not open the gates for a vehicle to cross if the block repeater is showing Train on Line or Line Clear

Down Line do not open after a train has been in section for more than 5 minutes unless you have seen it pass."

A lot of post war accident reports were instances of human error by crossing keepers or their wives.

[SamThomas]

18 hours ago, 96701 said:

No it can't. It is nowhere near accurate enough or reliable enough. People blame sat navs for telling them to turn left now and ending up on the railway line instead of the junction just after, and that is generally at 30 mph. Now try it at 70 mph and still provide enough notice to tell somebody that they are safe to cross.

 

Do you honestly believe that people haven't already tried to look for the cheapest options?

Yes it can - I'm not talking abou el-cheapo car satnags, I'm talking about GPS. Most of the GPS tracks & other vehicles I've driven are accurate down to a meter or so & at well over 70mph (to take account of MB Sprinter drivers).

 

Anyway, if GPS is accurate enough for the US military to post a missile through your letterbox (providing they have the correct address) I'm sure it will be sufficient in the flatlands of East Anglia for what we are discussing on this wandering thread.

[SamThomas]

On 28/12/2021 at 12:53, phil-b259 said:

 

How many people (quite a few of whom will statistically have mobility problems die on UK roads each year?

 

In 2020 that figure was 1516 individual human lives! (a figure which was probably quite a bit lower than previous norms due to the various lockdowns by the way).

 

By your yardstick we should slap a 20mph limit on all roads where pedestrians have access or which have a footpath alongside 'just in case'

 

Have a look at the ones featured here https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41259&hilit=footpath

 

I hate to break it to you but human life is NOT SACROSANCT! - nor should it be! The money does not exist to eliminate all risk everywhere and as such it is necessary to rank spending priorities on the basis of which has the most effect.

 

Given the huge disparity between road / pedestrian and rail / pedestrian deaths I know where I would put any spare cash - like getting rid of all those footpath crossings on fast dual carriageways for starters...

 

 

 

Oh FPS, of course there is a limit to the value of human life, but we can argue till the bovines come home  about what it actually is.

 

You will change your attitude when you get old & decrepit or your loved ones do or, god forbid something happens that a bit of cash could have prevented.

 

& no, I don't want every road limnited to 20mph, although some should be - those that already are were effectively diffecult to exceed that anyway.

[SamThomas]

18 hours ago, rab said:

Obviously not

We are all free to continue or ignore.

[SamThomas]

16 hours ago, ess1uk said:

No

Not too many tunnels in East Anglia...................

1, 12, 3...................

[SamThomas]

16 hours ago, 96701 said:

Do sat navs work in tunnels? Just thinking of Hope under Dinmore where the trains comes out of a tunnel and crosses 3 footpath crossings in quick succession.

 

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=1f3486c4-aaa3-4541-a9d4-2f2fdb516efc&cp=52.169997~-2.726448&lvl=16&style=s&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

As already answered - no.

However, there are other ways for moveable objects to be tracked.