| Description: The aim of the RESTRAIL project is to reduce the occurrence of suicides and trespasses on railway property and the costly service disruption these events cause, by providing the rail industry with an analysis and identification of cost-effective prevention and mitigation measures.
The project starts by identifying the state of the art of best practices and research findings (inside and outside Europe) combined with an analysis of factors (internal to railways or external such as media communication) influencing the occurrence of suicides and trespasses and their consequences, based on official data sources and other collected data. This work will consider hotspots and other high risk access points such as level crossings, station platform ends and bridges.
This is followed by an assessment of existing countermeasures (technical and soft) for reducing suicides, preventing trespasses and mitigating the consequences on rail operations. Attention will then be given to the development of new approaches particularly those involving soft measures. The project will demonstrate some selected measures in order to evaluate the findings and finally develop recommendations and guidelines.
This project is led by railways since it is a rail related topic which aims to answer the concerns of the rail industry. However an essential feature of the project is the involvement of a wide range of relevant professional expert knowledge in the areas of human science and health, law enforcement, emergency services, education and social services, media and communication, road and rail. This will ensure the project output is of practical use to all who can be involved with suicides and trespasses.
The final outcome will be a toolkit, accessible through a user friendly interface (for consultation and continuous update) in order to support the decision-makers in taking practical steps to reduce suicides and trespasses and to mitigate the consequences once an event occurs. |
