LEVEL CROSSING SAFETYSUPPLEMENT 9


Jernbaneverket has invested in improving conditions, and hence safety, at private level crossings. One such step is to upgrade the road over the crossing to prevent vehicles from getting stuck in the winter. This picture is from the Rauma line.


bells or lights. However, serious accidents do also occur at protected level crossings, usually as a result of careless driving by a motorist trying to speed through the crossing while the barriers are already coming down. In such cases the car can easily be trapped between the barriers and hit by the train. On snow-covered winter roads, too, there is a high accident risk at protected level crossings. Slippery conditions are the cause of many accidents where wheelspin prevents a road vehicle from clearing the crossing before the train arrives.


Signage The vast majority of level crossings, which serve private roads, are equipped only with warning signs and gates. A great many of these crossings are used solely for agricultural or forestry purposes. When the Norwegian rail network was built between 1854 and the 1930s, agreements


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» Jernbaneverket has worked intensively both to reduce the number of level crossings and to protect them better using simpler methods «


were signed with landowners along the routes. As part of their compensation for ceding land to the railway, these landowners were granted the right to have private level crossings for access to their land on the other side of the tracks. These private crossings are the landowner’s responsibility, and some have been equipped with special warning lights at the landowner’s expense.


Liability Level crossing users have a strict duty of care when crossing the railway. All road vehicle drivers have a duty of care, which is set out in


Norway’s Road Traffic Act and Highway Code. All learner drivers are instructed that “prior to entering a level crossing, road users must check whether a train or tram is approaching. This applies even if the crossing is protected. Drivers must approach at sufficiently low speed that they can stop, if necessary, a safe distance from the crossing.”


Responsibility for maintenance Unless otherwise agreed, it is Jernbaneverket’s responsibility to maintain protected level crossings and to ensure that they function properly at all times. In the case of private level crossings, the authorised users are responsible both for safety and for traffic on the crossing. The warning lights installed at some private crossings are intended only as an aid to users and cannot be equated with traffic signals at public level crossings. Warning lights at private


European Railway Review Volume 17, Issue 4, 2011


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