| Brief Description of Research Project | Shared or mixed use corridors refer to different types of passenger and freight trains using common infrastructure in one way or another. Different characteristics from different types of operation may result in complicated operating environments. A high priority for any rail system is operating safety, and there are several concerns associated with operating passenger and freight trains on shared-use corridors. Adjacent track accident (ATA) is one of the paramount challenges being identified. ATA refers to train accident scenarios where a derailed rail equipment intrudes adjacent tracks, causing operation disturbance and potential subsequent train collisions on the adjacent tracks. Other ATA scenarios include collisions between trains on adjacent tracks (raking), turnouts, and railroad crossings. Limited literature is available that addressed the risk of ATA for shared-use corridor, except a fault-tree analysis developed for ATA in previous research. A three-phase, comprehensive and quantitative risk assessment model will be developed to address the ATA risk. Three models will be developed to address the probabilities of initial derailment, intrusion and train presence on adjacent tracks. Affecting factors for each model will be identified and their effects will be quantified into those models. Common factor issues will be dealt with by quantitative risk assessment (QRA) techniques. This project will involve a comprehensive risk assessment for ATAs on shared-use corridor, providing a basis for risk comparison, evaluation of risk mitigation strategy, and decision-making process in the future. |