Context-sensitive safety policy for highway railway grade crossings: Evidence from fatal crash pattern analysis

Fatal crashes at highway railway grade crossings (HRGC) remain a serious safety concern in the United States, yet many studies examine contributing factors individually and do not distinguish how fatal crash patterns differ between rural and urban settings. This study addresses that gap by identifying crash patterns within fatal crash cases at HRGC and linking them to context-specific safety considerations. Fatal crash data from 2018 to 2023 are analyzed using spatial analysis, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and association rule mining (ARM). XGBoost is applied to screen variables related to land use classification, while ARM is used to identify frequent co-occurring crash characteristics. A lift-based rule evaluation criterion is employed to maintain informative rules. Results reveal distinct rural and urban crash profiles. Rural fatal crashes are mainly associated with high-speed travel on undivided roadways, straight approaches, pickup trucks, and lack of occupant protection, which are consistent with considerations for systematic upgrades to active warning devices, automatic gates, and nighttime visibility at passive or minimally protected rural crossings. Urban fatal crashes are more often linked to lower speed local streets, dark lighting conditions, level curvature, and complex roadway environments, which are consistent with considerations such as flashing lights, audible warnings, and treatments such as dynamic envelope markings that clarify clearance space and reduce encroachment. These findings show that fatal crash cases at HRGC are characterized by specific combinations of roadway, vehicle, environmental, and human factors, supporting context-specific interpretation of safety conditions. The study demonstrates how integrating ARM into HRGC safety management can inform Toward Zero Deaths (TZD)–oriented policies, support context-specific interpretation of HRGC safety patterns and motivate further investigation within state and federal grade crossing improvement programs.