Lin, C-Y., M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2022. Semi-quantitative risk assessment of adjacent track accidents on shared-use rail corridors. Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management. 24 (December 2022): 100355. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrtpm.2022.100355.
There are several safety questions associated with operating passenger trains and freight trains on shared-use rail corridors (SRCs). Among them are adjacent track accidents (ATA) in which derailed railroad equipment intrudes upon (“fouls”) adjacent tracks and is struck by another train on adjacent tracks. ATAs can occur in any multiple track territory, but they become…
Lin, C-Y., M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2019. Quantitative causal analysis of mainline passenger train accidents in the United States. Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit. doi:10.1177/0954409719876128.
The need for shared freight and passenger rail corridors in the United States is increasing due to the growing demand for regional and intercity passenger transport. Several researches have been conducted on reducing the risk of freight train accidents, but little research has been done on the risk of passenger train accidents. The accident rates…
Treichel, T.T., J.P. Hughes, C.P.L. Barkan, R.D. Sims, E.A. Phillips, M.R. Saat, Y.K. Wen and D.G. Simpson. 2006. Safety Performance of Tank Cars in Accidents: Probabilities of Lading Loss, RA-05-02. RSI-AAR Railroad Tank Car Safety Research and Test Project, Leesburg, VA.
Schaeffer, D.J., C.W. Werth, C.P.L. Barkan, H. Yoon and N. Hridaya. 2008. Hazardous Materials Transportation Environmental Consequence Model: Verification and Validation Document. Railroad Engineering Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (for the Association of American Railroads), Urbana, IL.
Saat, M.R. and C.P.L. Barkan. 2006. Risk Analysis of Rail Transport of Chlorine and Ammonia on U.S. Railroad Mainlines. Railroad Engineering Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (for the Association of American Railroads), Urbana, IL.
Barkan, C.P.L., M.R. Saat, F. Gonzalez, III and T.T. Treichel. 2013. Cooperative Research in Tank Car Safety Design. TR News. 286: May - June, pp. 12-19.
Nakles, D.V., J.W. Lynch, D. Edwards, J.G. Tell, T.L. Potter, R.P. Andes and C.P.L. Barkan. 1996. Risk-Based Management of Diesel Contaminated Soil, R-897. Association of American Railroads, Washington, DC, p. 190.
Zhang, L., S.G. Chadwick and C.P.L. Barkan. 2018. Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Incident Consequence Analysis. In: Proceedings of Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Conference. Washington, DC.
Highway rail grade crossing safety has improved considerably in the past two decades. Among the reasons is investment in more effective warning systems. Such upgrades are costly and resources are limited so decisions on which crossings should receive these investments should be made so that they will have the greatest impact on improving safety. A…
Li, W., G.S. Roscoe, Z. Zhang, M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2018. Comparison of Loaded and Empty Unit Train Derailment Characteristics. In: Proceedings of Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Conference. Washington, DC. doi:10.1177/0361198118810780.
Freight train derailment rate has declined substantially over the past decade. Although various aspects of this improvement in train safety have been studied, there has been only limited research examining the effect of train loading condition on derailment occurrence, causes and severity. Unit trains operate loaded in one direction and return empty, and their operation…
Lin, C-Y., C.P.L. Barkan and M.R. Saat. 2017. Semi-quantitative Risk Assessment of Adjacent Track Accidents on Shared-use Rail Corridors. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Heavy Haul Association Conference. Cape Town, South Africa.
Adjacent track accidents (ATA) primarily refer to train accident scenarios in which derailed rail-road equipment intrudes upon (“fouls”) adjacent tracks and is potentially struck by another train on an adjacent track. ATA has been identified as one of the most important safety issues on shared passenger and freight railroad corridors. Various infrastructure, equipment and operational…
Chadwick, S.G., C.P.L. Barkan and M.R. Saat. 2017. Quantitative Prediction of the Risk of Heavy Haul Freight Train Derailments due to Collisions at Level Crossings. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Heavy Haul Association Conference. Cape Town, South Africa.
The current methodology for prioritizing level crossing (LC) warning system upgrades and elimination in the United States (U.S.) focuses on the likelihood of collisions between highway and rail vehicles as well as highway user fatalities. However, these metrics do not encompass all LC risks. In particular, they do not consider the risk of derailment that…
Lin, C-Y., M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2014. Causal Analysis of Passenger Train Accident on Shared-Use Rail Corridors. In: Proceedings of Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Conference. Washington, DC.
Aguilar Serrano, J. and M.R. Saat. 2014. Flammable Liquid Fire Consequence Modeling. In: Proceedings of the 2014 Joint Rail Conference. Colorado Springs, CO. April 2014. doi:10.1115/JRC2014-3851.
Barkan, C.P.L. and D.J. Pasternak. 1999. Evaluating New Technologies for Railway Tank Car Safety Through Cooperative Research. In: Proceedings of the World Congress on Railway Research. Tokyo, Japan.
Day, K.R. and C.P.L. Barkan. 2002. The Potential Impact of a Mid-America Earthquake on the Railroad Network. In: Proceedings of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association. Washington, DC.
Schlake, B.W., J.R. Edwards, J.M. Hart, C.P.L. Barkan, S. Todorovic and N. Ahuja. 2009. Machine Vision Condition Monitoring of Heavy-Haul Railcar Structural Underframe Components. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Heavy Haul Conference. Shanghai, China.
Hart, J.M., B.W. Schlake, S. Todorovic, J.R. Edwards, N. Ahuja and C.P.L. Barkan. 2009. Machine Vision Condition Monitoring of Railcar Structural Underframe Components. In: Proceedings of the Fall Conference of the ASME Rail Transportation Division. Ft. Worth, TX.
Sawadisavi, S.V., J.R. Edwards, E. Resendiz, J.M. Hart, C.P.L. Barkan and N. Ahuja. 2009. Machine-Vision Inspection of Railroad Track. In: Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting. Washington, DC.
Liu, X., C.T. Dick, A.H. Lovett, M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2013. Seasonal Effect on the Optimization of Rail Defect Inspection Frequency. In: Proceedings of the ASME 2013 Rail Transportation Division Fall Technical Conference. Altoona, PA. doi:10.1115/RTDF2013-4711.
Hajibabai, L., M.R. Saat, Y. Ouyang, C.P.L. Barkan, Z. Yang, K. Bowling, K. Somani, D. Lauro and X. Li. 2012. Wayside Defect Detector Data Mining to Predict Potential WILD Train Stops. In: Proceedings of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL.
Liu, X., M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2013. Analysis of Major Derailment Causes on Heavy Haul Railways in the United States. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Heavy Haul Association Conference. New Delhi, India.
Liu, X., C.T. Dick and M.R. Saat. 2014. Optimizing Ultrasonic Rail Defect Inspection to Improve Transportation Safety and Efficiency. In: Proceedings of the Second ASCE Transportation and Development Institute Congress. Orlando, FL, pp. 765-774. doi:10.1061/9780784413586.074.
Freid, B., C.P.L. Barkan, N. Ahuja, J.M. Hart, S. Todorvic and N. Kocher. 2007. Multispectral Machine Vision for Improved Undercarriage Inspection of Railroad Rolling Stock. In: International Heavy Haul Conference Specialist Technical Session - High Tech in Heavy Haul. Kiruna, Sweden, pp. 737-744.
Edwards, J.R., J.M. Hart, S. Todorovic, C.P.L. Barkan, N. Ahuja, Z. Chua, N. Kocher and J.C. Zeman. 2007. Development of Machine Vision Technology for Railcar Safety Appliance Inspection. In: International Heavy Haul Conference Specialist Technical Session - High Tech in Heavy Haul. Kiruna, Sweden, pp. 745-752.
Anand, P., C.P.L. Barkan, D.J. Schaeffer, C.J. Werth and B.S. Minsker. 2005. Environmental Risk Analysis of Chemicals Transported in Railroad Tank Cars. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Heavy Haul Conference. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pp. 395-403.
Anderson, R.T. and C.P.L. Barkan. 2005. Derailment Probability Analyses and Modeling of Mainline Freight Trains. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Heavy Haul Conference. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. June 2005, pp. 491-497.
Lovett, A.H., C.P.L. Barkan and C.T. Dick. 2013. An Integrated Model for the Evaluation and Planning of Railroad Track Maintenance. In: Proceedings of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association Annual Conference. Indianapolis, IN, pp. 1029-1044.
Each year the North American Class 1 railroads spend billions of dollars on track maintenance. Even a small percentage reduction in maintenance costs, could save the railroads millions of dollars. Of course this is only feasible if cost reductions can be accomplished without decreasing the safety, utility, and robustness of the railroad track infrastructure. One…
Pasternak, D.J. and C.P.L. Barkan. 1997. 26 Years of Cooperative Research on North American Railroad Tank Car Safety. In: Mechanical Working and Steel Processing Conference Proceedings, Iron and Steel Society of AIME. Warrendale, PA, pp. 1139-1147.
Liu, X., M.R. Saat and C.P.L. Barkan. 2013. Safety Effectiveness of Integrated Accident Prevention Strategies. In: Proceedings of the ASME Joint Rail Conference. Knoxville, TN.
There are potential interactions among approaches to reduce or prevent certain accident causes. Given the overlapped safety benefits of various measures for accident prevention, it is necessary to identify their interactions and quantify the safety effectiveness of combined accident prevention strategies. This study focuses on strategies to prevent broken rails and broken wheels, respectively. Improved…
Anderson, R.T. and C.P.L. Barkan. 2004. Railroad accident rates for use in rail transportation risk analysis. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 1863: 88-98.
Annual safety statistics published by FRA provide train accident counts for various groupings, such as railroad, accident type, cause, track type and class, train length, and speed. However, hazardous materials transportation risk analysis often requires more detailed accident rate statistics for specific combinations of these groupings. The statistics that are presented enable more precise determination…
Anand, P. and C.P.L. Barkan. 2006. Exposure of soil and groundwater to spills of hazardous materials transported by rail: A geographic information system analysis. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 1943: 12-19.
The environmental impact of a hazardous material spill is a complex function of the material’s physical and chemical characteristics and the local environmental conditions in which it is spilled. This study develops a geographical probability distribution for two important environmental parameters affecting this impact: soil type and groundwater depth. The paper assesses the probability of…
Barkan, C.P.L. 2004. Cost effectiveness of railroad fuel spill prevention using a new locomotive refueling system. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. 9 (4): 251-262.
Fuel spillage during locomotive refueling is expensive, as is maintaining spill collection and containment systems, and waste treatment costs. The Association of American Railroads has developed the first standard for a locomotive refueling system for North American railroads. The locomotive fueling interface standard is an open, non-proprietary standard designed to prevent fuel spillage. Prototype equipment…
Barkan, C.P.L., T.S. Glickman and A.E. Harvey. 1991. Benefit-cost evaluation of using different specification tank cars to reduce the risk of transporting environmentally sensitive chemicals. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 1313: 33-43.
In response to public concerns about the environment, regulatory requirements for cleaning up spills of certain chemicals have become more stringent and cleanup costs have increased dramatically. Hence, due consideration must be given to environmental sensitivity as an element of transportation risk. Among the environmentally sensitive chemicals of most concern to the railroad industry are…
Kawprasert, A. and C.P.L. Barkan. 2010. Effect of train speed on risk analysis of transporting hazardous materials by rail. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 2159: 59-68.
This paper considers the effect of train speed on railroad hazardous materials transportation risk. A statistical method was developed to estimate the speed-dependent conditional probability of release (CPR) of hazardous material from tank cars involved in accidents. The objective was to assess how accounting for speed affects the results of risk analysis. A case study…
