National Rail Safety Week

This week, 7-13 August, is Rail Safety Week (TrackSafe Foundation).

Rail Safety Week is an annual community awareness week held in Australia and New Zealand, designed to engage the community in safe rail practices. Every life lost and injury on the rail network is a tragedy and the impacts on family, friends, communities, rail and recovery staff and witnesses can be profound. These incidents together with thousands of near hits each year can cause trauma and work-related stress and illness to rail and recovery staff.

Acusensus has partnered with the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and Transport Heritage NSW on a number of initiatives to monitor rail crossings and provide data on behaviours at these sites.

After conducting trials using Acusensus Heads-Up technology to monitor railway crossings across NSW last year, Acusensus Managing Director, Alexander Jannink, said the level of non-compliance with warning signs was worrying and showed more needed to be done to educate motorists of the potential dangers level crossings posed to the safety of both vehicle and train occupants.

“These trials marked an important step in understanding how motorists are behaving around level crossings and where there are opportunities to use this data to affect long-lasting change,” Mr Jannink said. “We have been innovating solutions in road safety for many years and recognise that there is still more work to be done when it comes to level crossings.”

For more info on Road Safety Week, visit the TrackSafe Foundation page.