Imagine being on a rural or country road that you’ve never travelled on in thick fog if you were a truck driver and be greeted by the image below:
Can you see the Freight Train at the level crossing?
The image was taken some 200m (600 feet) from a railway level crossing in thick fog – the level crossing is currently occupied by a very long freight train.
Can you see it?
Imagine being the driver of a prime mover towing 50 tonnes of freight and traveling at the speed limit of 110Km/h?
If you were that driver, you would NEED to know as far in advance as possible to bring such a heavy truck to a stop and not run into the freight train.
To address this issue ATC developed a product to a joint VicRoads (www.vicroads.vic.gov.au) and VicTrack (www.victrack.com.au) specification for a railway activated advanced warning sign system.
The product is a control system that drives up to 4 flashing warning signs when a train is about to approach a railway level crossing.
The advanced warning signs can be generally located up to 200 metres ahead of the railway level crossing, in so doing, give motorists enough warning to bring their truck or vehicle to a stop before reaching the railway level crossing.
This product was created in response to a number of road vehicles crashing with trains with a number of fatalities.
Numerous enquiries and government infrastructure committees have sought one or more ways to prevent such disasters from happening.
The AAWS is a product that assists roads users in the prevention of fatalities on rural roads, where high speeds, vegetation obstruction, or the physical undulation of the road approaching a level crossing makes them difficult to see the railway crossing.
The AAWS is also fitted with standby power so that in the event of mains failure, the unit can continue to operate and report any failures to a central monitoring system.
For information on the advanced warning sign controller click on AAWS.
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