PROCEDURE FOR A PRIORITY RANKING SYSTEM FOR RAIL-HIGHWAY GRADE CROSSINGS

In 1982 the Interstate Division for Baltimore City undertook a study of 19 rail-highway grade crossings, with the objective of recommending improvements for those crossings. A portion of the study involved the development of a procedure that would rank the crossings in terms of their relative need for improvement. An equation that considered safety, vehicular delay, and emergencyaccess problem potential was used as the basis of the ranking procedure. The procedure also required the decision maker to quantify the relative importance of these three factors. The equation yielded a numerical score for each location under study. The crossings were then ranked on the basis of their scores. The crossing with the greatest score received the number 1 ranking; the rest of the crossings were ranked in descending order based on their scores. Although the procedure has several weaknesses (which are documented in this paper), it was found to be quite useful for the purposes of the study.