ONRSR is committed to doing everything in our power to address this risk, listing level crossing safety as an ongoing national priority, developing the ONRSR Level Crossings Policy and focusing heavily on enforcing the law as it relates to interface agreements. And we have seen some progress with incidents trending down in some level crossing related categories during the latter half of the last decade. 

But more can be done and so following the successful development of our regulatory portal, we’re now looking at adding a similar digital resource to our level crossing safety suite. On behalf of the National Level Crossing Safety Committee, the plan is to enable industry, governments, industry bodies such as TrackSafe and other stakeholders to access national level crossing safety and incident data that is tailored to their needs. In time the Level Crossing Reporting Portal should translate into a reduced safety risk and better-informed level crossing safety related investment decisions. Stay tuned for updates on the project in coming months.

Like any other safety risk, there is no silver bullet when addressing level crossing safety. It is imperative that operators continue to look at their levels of protection and work closely with road managers. The combination of that ongoing work in the field and the emerging power of big data can be very helpful in tackling these big issues.

Stay safe and well.

Sue McCarrey

Chief Executive / National Rail Safety Regulator