over the railway. Cattle guards or large crushed stones alongside the crossings will
discourage animals from entering the fenced railroad track. Escape ramps or
one-way gates will be installed to allow animals to exit if they get trapped inside the
fence nevertheless.
Providing the same animal detection and monitoring and surveillance systems,
each experimental crosswalk will operate as an independent unit that will be triggered by the same signal from a standard train sensor located several kilometers
earlier along the railway. One train sensor will serve several crosswalks, and the
delay between the train passing the sensor and the alarm at each crosswalk will
be adjusted to the speed of the train and the distance between the crosswalk and the
sensor. Warnings will only be displayed when animals are detected near the
crosswalk and a train has passed the sensor, i.e., when the risk of a collision is
imminent. This basic setup will be identical at all crosswalks and guarantee a
standardized basis for the evaluation and comparison of different warning methods.
We budgeted 150,000–270,000 Euros per experimental crosswalk that includes
surveillance equipment and warning systems. If such systems were installed on a
regular basis, the costs would be substantially lower. The overall budget for the 20–
24 crosswalks along 50 km of fenced railways was 5.5 million Euros in total
(minimum cost estimate 4,500,000 million Euros and maximum estimate
7,800,000 million Euros) (Olsson and Seiler 2015). Most of the budget is reserved
for fences (about 50,000 Euros per km), while research money totalled about
5,500,000 Euros over 4 years. However, if one assumes that over the next 20 years,
WTC levels and the average costs for repairs, delays, and reimbursements are similar
to those of the last 10 years, and at least 80% of the WTCS could be prevented by
fences and/or crosswalks, then the socio-economic costs that could be saved by
mitigating the selected hotspots alone would exceed 4,600,000 Euros. However, it is
likely that the overall costs for the installation of the experimental study will be
outbalanced by the savings, because the benefits are easily underestimated (Olsson
and Seiler 2015; Seiler et al. 2016).
The Deterrent System
Traditional attempts to scare animals away from fields, roads, and airports by means
of ultrasonic whistles, explosionss or shooting guns have mostly been ineffective
(Koehler et al. 1990; Romin and Dalton 1992; Curtis et al. 1997; Belant et al. 1998;
Ujvari et al. 2004). The underlying problem is that when the warning signal is not
followed by a real threat and is merely a bluff without consequence, animals will
soon habituate and learn to ignore the signal (Bomford and O’Brien 1990). In our
approach, we rely on the passing train to reinforce the signal. In most cases, as we
have seen in our video recordings, the train will be frightening enough when it is
nearby. Habituation should therefore not be a problem; instead, learning should
instead lead to a conditioning, provided the animals are able to relate the signal to
the approaching train. Conditioning will presumably work best in those individuals
17 Wildlife Deterrent Methods for Railways—An Experimental Study
287
discourage animals from entering the fenced railroad track. Escape ramps or
one-way gates will be installed to allow animals to exit if they get trapped inside the
fence nevertheless.
Providing the same animal detection and monitoring and surveillance systems,
each experimental crosswalk will operate as an independent unit that will be triggered by the same signal from a standard train sensor located several kilometers
earlier along the railway. One train sensor will serve several crosswalks, and the
delay between the train passing the sensor and the alarm at each crosswalk will
be adjusted to the speed of the train and the distance between the crosswalk and the
sensor. Warnings will only be displayed when animals are detected near the
crosswalk and a train has passed the sensor, i.e., when the risk of a collision is
imminent. This basic setup will be identical at all crosswalks and guarantee a
standardized basis for the evaluation and comparison of different warning methods.
We budgeted 150,000–270,000 Euros per experimental crosswalk that includes
surveillance equipment and warning systems. If such systems were installed on a
regular basis, the costs would be substantially lower. The overall budget for the 20–
24 crosswalks along 50 km of fenced railways was 5.5 million Euros in total
(minimum cost estimate 4,500,000 million Euros and maximum estimate
7,800,000 million Euros) (Olsson and Seiler 2015). Most of the budget is reserved
for fences (about 50,000 Euros per km), while research money totalled about
5,500,000 Euros over 4 years. However, if one assumes that over the next 20 years,
WTC levels and the average costs for repairs, delays, and reimbursements are similar
to those of the last 10 years, and at least 80% of the WTCS could be prevented by
fences and/or crosswalks, then the socio-economic costs that could be saved by
mitigating the selected hotspots alone would exceed 4,600,000 Euros. However, it is
likely that the overall costs for the installation of the experimental study will be
outbalanced by the savings, because the benefits are easily underestimated (Olsson
and Seiler 2015; Seiler et al. 2016).
The Deterrent System
Traditional attempts to scare animals away from fields, roads, and airports by means
of ultrasonic whistles, explosionss or shooting guns have mostly been ineffective
(Koehler et al. 1990; Romin and Dalton 1992; Curtis et al. 1997; Belant et al. 1998;
Ujvari et al. 2004). The underlying problem is that when the warning signal is not
followed by a real threat and is merely a bluff without consequence, animals will
soon habituate and learn to ignore the signal (Bomford and O’Brien 1990). In our
approach, we rely on the passing train to reinforce the signal. In most cases, as we
have seen in our video recordings, the train will be frightening enough when it is
nearby. Habituation should therefore not be a problem; instead, learning should
instead lead to a conditioning, provided the animals are able to relate the signal to
the approaching train. Conditioning will presumably work best in those individuals
17 Wildlife Deterrent Methods for Railways—An Experimental Study
287