A methodology to locate and separate railroad-highway at-grade crossings for emissions reductions: A case study with California crossings

One of the key advantages of separating a railroad-highway at-grade crossing are emissions reductions resulting from elimination of idling/waiting of vehicles at a crossing while trains pass. Monetized benefit of emissions reductions is often seen as motivation for separation, but its complete evaluation is often very laborious and time consuming. In fact, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) policy that uses a formula for selecting a crossing in California for separation lacks considerations for benefits-cost aspects of the resulting emissions reductions. This paper presents a benefits-cost-based indicator, in conjunction with another emissions reductions potential indicator, to quickly identify one or more crossings with high benefits-cost indicator for emissions reductions when separated. The benefits-cost indicator represents the magnitude of benefits-to-cost ratio that can be realized with the separation. Analysis with ten key at-grade crossings in California showed that the crossing recommended for separation by the benefits-cost-based approach adopted in this research differed from the one with the existing CPUC policy. Therefore, if benefits-cost considerations of emissions reductions is important, this paper can serve as a very useful supplement over the existing CPUC methodology for quickly determining which crossing to separate from several thousands of railroad-highway at-grade crossings in California and elsewhere in other parts of the United States.