Railroad Grade Crossing Monitoring System

Highway-rail grade crossings can be source of significant traffic delay, particularly in large urban areas such as Houston. This project examined how real-time detection, communication, and information systems can be integrated to monitor the movements of trains in a corridor to reduce conflicts and delays created by railroad grade crossings for the primary benefit of fire and police personnel while on emergency runs. This railroad grade crossing monitoring project was developed by the Houston District of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) as part of the ITS Priority Corridor Program. The Sugar Land Rail Monitoring System covers the 6.4 mile US 90A rail-highway corridor between Kirkwood and Grand Parkway. On average, more than 30 total trains per day use the corridor. The UPRR passes through two fire department districts, creating the need for Fire Stations 1 and 2 to make emergency runs crossing the UPRR tracks. Timely information of projected crossing blockages was considered to be the most useful piece of information that the system could produce.