Rail and road also meet at sites other than level crossings. Industry concerns over the risk posed to the railway by road vehicles were focused mainly on level crossings.
According to the Rail Safety and Standards Board Safety Risk Model, this represented around 80% of the rail/road interface risk.
After the Great Heck train crash on 28 February 2001 in which 10 people were fatally injured, these rail/road interface sites are subject to a programme of risk reduction.
Our role is to monitor progress by infrastructure controllers, working with the local highway authorities completing detailed risk assessments and any necessary improvements to further reduce incursion risk at vulnerable sites. Network Rail, working with local authorities, aimed to complete this work at high risk sites on the mainline railway by March 2007. Although good progress has been made, some work remains outstanding and we continue to monitor progress.
The Department for Transport (DfT) published "Managing the accidental obstruction of the railway by road vehicles" in September 2003.
Various bodies, including the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), contributed to this publication which details a risk ranking process to be followed at each road over rail bridge and each adjacent rail/road site.