Pedestrian railroad safety in the United States

Pedestrian railroad safety is concerned with the protection of life through regulation, management and technology development of all forms of rail transportation.

[14] The United States Department of Transportation administers various regulatory bodies, the most relevant to railway safety being the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

In the mid-2010s, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) did a pilot study on anti-trespass panels, a British innovation consisting of spiky rubber mats designed to be difficult to walk on, placed on one side of a grade crossing in an area of Fayetteville, Arkansas, popular with pedestrians.

[14] After several deaths in Villa Park, Illinois, safety advocates built fences at spots where people would often walk across train tracks.

[14] In June 2015, the FRA announced a railway safety initiative with Google that would include the FRAs GIS data into its mapping services.

If the company detected somebody on the tracks, a message on the speaker said: “Warning: You are trespassing on private property and are in danger of being struck by a train.

[14] Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit association, was co-founded in the 1970s by Union Pacific Railroad, and has been criticized as having a pro-railroad agenda.