Railroad level crossings and an autonomous vehicle

Level crossing is an interface between road and rail environments. It is obvious that in the future autonomous cars cannot avoid level crossings. So far, very little attention is put on investigating how autonomous car can pass level crossings and especially the unprotected ones. Today the vast amount of level crossings are still unprotected. This paper discusses the problematics of autonomous cars passing the level crossings which are related to behavioural aspects, required information and safety in both protected and unprotected level crossings. Discussion covers the use of V2X messaging, use of the autonomous car´s perception sensors and use of a train tracking solution to provide required data for safe passing of level crossing. Results are obtained via field tests and simulations.