Effects of Whistle-Blowing Bans on Accidents at Gated Rail-Highway Crossings: The Northeastern Illinois Experience

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of whistle-blowing bans on accidents at gated rail-highway public crossings in the Chicago metropolitan region. The statistical analysis show that it is rather misleading to unconditionally associate whistle bans with accident incidence and higher collision frequencies of rail-highway crossings while ignoring other factors or combinations of factors that are probably more relevant to the operational characteristics of the crossings. A deeper one delves into the interactive effects of crossing-specific characteristics on the number of accidents, the more the impact of individual factors becomes confounded so that interaction effects may even negate the effects of individual factors.