MARIETTA, Ga. — Alerts to improve safety at railroad crossings will now come straight to your phone in one metro Atlanta city.
Train detector sensors installed at railroad crossings in Marietta will alert drivers about blocked railroad crossings well before they approach it.
“When a train comes by, these actually will show up as red icons to show that there is a train. When that happens, we’ll notify drivers,” TRAINFO CEO Garreth Rempel told Channel 2 Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell.
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Drivers will get the information on Google Maps or Waze before they even approach the blocked railroad crossing.
“We also give this information to first responders which has helped them reduce their response times by 90% when there is a train,” Rempel said.
Right now, the train detection sensors are installed at four railroad crossings in Marietta.
“There’s been seven accidents in Marietta at rail crossings in the last five years; a lot of these accidents are fatal,” Rempel said.
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David Fink, the Administrator for the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration, says they have partnered with TRAINFO.
“Every three or four hours, a car and train collide in the United States, so it’s a number that way too high,” Fink said. “We are working with TRAINFO...we can get the people around when a crossing is blocked for ambulances for other first responders."
The City of Marietta will also install signs at the four railroad crossings that indicate a train is ahead and where to go to avoid it.
TRAINFO is currently in 41 cities and monitoring nearly 500 railroad crossings.
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