• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.23 no.4 s.82
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• pp.17-28
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• 2005

About 91.1% of Railway-Highway Crossings (RHC) in Korea use a Constant Distance Warning System(CDWS), while about 8.9% use a Constant Warning Time System(CWTS). The CDWS does not recognize speed differences of approaching trains and provides only waiting times to vehicles and pedestrians based on the highest speed of approaching trains. Under the CDWS, therefore, low speed trains provide unnecessary waiting times at crossings which often generates complains to vehicle drivers and pedestrians and may cause wrong decisions to pass the crossings. The objective of this research is to improve the safety of the RHC by developing accurate a CWTS. In this research a train speed and location detection system was developed with ultra sonic detectors. Locations of the detectors was decided based on the highest speed and the minimum warning time of Saemaul of 160 km/h. To validate the algorithms of the newly developed systems the lab tests were conducted. The results show that the train detection system provides accurate locations of trains and the maximum error between real speeds of trains and those of the system was 0.07m/s.