RAILROAD-HIGHWAY CROSSINGS AND ROUTE SELECTION FOR TRANSPORTING HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

This article covers the importance of considering the presence of railroad-highway crossings when selecting among alternative routes for transporting hazardous materials. Even though the final ranking of the alternative routes in the hypothetical example did not change with the inclusion of a crossing, the population and property risk values greatly increased because of the at-grade crossing. Not all crossings would cause the large increases in the population and property risk values; the final results would depend on the predicted accident rate for the crossing and the population and area surrounding the crossing.