State of the Practice on Commingled Operation of Light Rail Transit and Freight Rail Services

The interest in commingling of freight and passenger trains gets intensified as potential LRT projects appear on the drawing board or join the existing transit systems in service. It is true that a long tradition existed in the United States and other part of the world that passenger and freight rail operations often share track, right-of-way or corridor, however, the current Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) policy dictates that freight and LRT trains using the same track must be separated by time-of-day, primarily because light rail vehicles (LTV) do not comply with FRA crashworthiness regulations. On the other hand, the commingled operation of LRT and freight rail services has caught the attention of transit operators, government agencies, and the research community, given the rapid demand on rail capacity in densely populated corridors in the US. This manuscript provides a baseline assessment of the co-mingled operation of LRT and freight rail services so further research maybe built upon and advanced.