At railway crossings, 58 workers still manage manually

While Europe is rapidly modernizing its railway infrastructure, Croatia continues to grapple with issues that belong in the transport history museum in developed countries. This concerns manually operated railway-road crossings, a technological anachronism that poses an almost unacceptable safety risk in the 21st century.

As explained by HŽ Infrastruktura, ‘on the HŽ Infrastruktura network, there are currently 16 railway-road crossings (ŽCP) that are manually operated by 58 workers in shifts. The operation of the device for securing the railway-road crossing and ensuring the railway-road crossing must be carried out no later than five minutes before the scheduled passage of the train.’

Such a system raises questions about cost rationality and safety shortcomings, given that Croatian railways still depend on the human factor for basic crossing security, which includes the ongoing need to finance 58 workers in shifts for relatively simple tasks of activating the device a few minutes before the train’s arrival.

Modernization marathon with questionable pace

Nevertheless, HŽ Infrastruktura explains that they are in a ‘large investment cycle in which approximately six billion euros is planned to be invested in railway infrastructure by 2035. Along with modernization and renewal projects for the tracks, we place a strong emphasis on the safety of railway-road and pedestrian crossings. In addition to crossings that are being abolished or automated as part of large EU modernization projects for certain sections, we are also implementing projects focused solely on modernizing devices at crossings.’

They further state that they have completed the modernization project of 50 ŽCPs that have been put into operation for traffic regulation, and work is ongoing on the modernization project of 95 ŽCPs (part has already been put into operation), with plans for the automation of another 46 ŽCPs in the near future.

However, when these numbers are placed in the context of overall needs and timeframes, the adequacy of the pace of modernization comes into question. Despite impressive investment plans, the fact remains that we still rely on archaic traffic management methods at critical points of the transport infrastructure.

The case of Republic of Austria

A symbolic example of the problem is certainly the crossing on Republic of Austria Street in Zagreb, one of the busiest urban crossings, where a child was killed earlier this year. There, they tell us from the public company, vehicle traffic will be abolished.

– Regarding the ŽCP ‘Republic of Austria’ in Zagreb, work is underway to install new devices for securing the pedestrian crossing, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year (a bypass fence for pedestrians and light-sound signaling is being installed).

After the completion of the work, the issuance of a usage permit and a decision from the Railway Safety Agency approving the use of the device will follow. The issuance of these permits takes an average of three to four months (it does not depend on HŽ Infrastruktura, but on the Agency). After the new devices are put into operation, the railway-road crossing will become exclusively a pedestrian crossing, and vehicle traffic will be abolished – they state from HŽ Infrastruktura.