Crashes at rail level crossings (RLXs) remain a persistent but ill-defined safety issue. In urban areas, RLXs are typically located in areas of high workload and visual clutter, such as busy shopping strips. Despite this, the impact of such environments on driver behaviour and compliance with RLX controls is not well understood. This study sought to examine where drivers direct their attention on approach to urban RLXs located in busy shopping strip areas, and whether this differs between novice and experienced drivers. Participants drove an instrumented vehicle around a pre-defined urban route containing several active (flashing light with boom barriers) RLXs. Drivers' visual scanning behaviour and cognitive processes were examined on approach to RLXs. The results suggest that RLXs were not a key focus of drivers' attention. Further, rather than actively scanning, participants were over-reliant on RLX warning signals and the behaviour of surrounding vehicles to alert them to the presence of both trains and RLXs. This study provides important insights into drivers' visual and cognitive behaviour on approach to urban RLXs located in areas of high visual demand.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 April 2015.
All research outputs
#7,302,619
of 25,374,917 outputs
Outputs from Accident Analysis & Prevention
#1,384
of 4,178 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#92,836
of 360,649 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Accident Analysis & Prevention
#16
of 66 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,917 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 71st percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,178 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 360,649 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 66 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its contemporaries.
