Safety Relevant Applications at Level Crossings by Means of Imaging Methods

The Institute of Transportation Systems (IFS) of the German Aerospace Center in Braunschweig investigates the situation of secondary lines in present and future in Germany. This project is funded by the Ministry of Economics in Lower Saxony. In particular, technical and operational solutions, which results in cost reducing improvements for the operating company, will be analysed. One attempt to increase the economical situation without neglecting safety aspects is found in the adoption of imaging methods for safety relevant applications in railways. In the past, several attempts were carried out to build up automated railway operations using imaging methods. Most attempts were using video-based camera techniques. However, none of these attempts were implemented in practice. On the contrary, imaging methods for applications to assist the operations of the German railways are in use since longer times. As an example may be named that the Hamburg commuter railway system is using video technique for the dispatching of the trains in stations by the train driver. Further applications for imaging methods for example are the track surveying and the level crossing monitoring. The video based level crossing monitoring is only used as a technical aided system for the signal man, to observe a distant level crossing. The protection of the level crossing against unauthorised crossing is still not implemented using imaging methods. In Germany, a significant part of the existing level crossings were built for cart-tracks or streets with few traffic in the near of crossroads with main streets. The characteristic of most of these level crossings is laying in the orthogonal adjustment to the main street. The operational most efficiently alternative is the use of an on-call barrier. But this technique can only be realised with cost-intensive common of the shelf components. Worldwide a multiplicity of technical not protected level crossings without any obstacle detection in different structural and operational constellations exist momentarily. Therefore the Institute of Transportation Systems of the DLR investigates the options for technical realised vacancy detection for the danger zone of level crossings and an automatically activation of the level crossing system by common of the shelf products using imaging methods. To show the possibilities of such a technology, the Institute of Transportation Systems will build up a demonstration system to analyse the alternatives in realising technical protection of level crossings in economical efficient ways without decreasing the safety