Measurements and Analysis of DSRC for V2T Safety-Critical Communications

Despite the evolution of wireless technology, enabling safety-critical applications, only a few systems have been developed for improving the safety at railroad crossings. We present a Vehicle-to-Train (V2T) communications architecture for an early warning application carried over Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) radios. We conduct DSRC performance measurements at railroad crossings in suburban environments in the US to evaluate its feasibility. Two types of measurement setups are proposed: direct warning and indirect warning. Our results show that DSRC can be deployed and configured for effectively providing a V2T communications system to warn drivers of an approaching train.