Out of interest, what is the capital cost of installing a level crossing on a new route, as opposed to an overbridge ?
Well, a new level crossing on a new line hasn’t been done for a long time, so what follows is ‘educated speculation’.
On a new route (which, as we know, includes lines that have been closed or mothballed), you will need some form of primary consent to get it reopened, ie an Order made under the Transport and Works Act, or a Development Consent Order (or, rarely, a Hybrid Bill). The cost of this process will be the same regardless of whether it is a bridge or level crossing.
Design will be significantly more for a level crossing, as there are 5 disciplines involved (signalling, telecoms, power, track, civils for the Highway) compared to one for a bridge (civils), and there will be more bespoke design and the need for several interdisciplinary checks. A bridge is much more likely to be of standard design and construction. Within ‘design’ there’s are also some considerable legal hurdles to cross for a level crossing, e.g. Level Crossing Orders, which can take up a large amount of m’learned friends time. This isn’t required for bridges as it is all wrapped up in the primary consent.
Construction cost would be less for the level crossing. The cost can be quite variable depending where it is in relation to other signalling assets, how far from a power supply, the nature of the road, and many other factors. Similarly a bridge cost can vary significantly depending on local topography, geology, the cost of land, and whether you are going ove for under (over is usually much cheaper).
Having said all that I’ll stick my neck out, and say that a new public highway LX on a new line, which would have to be full barriers wit signal protection, would cost between £3m - £5m all in. A new bridge for a public highway would be in the range £8m - £20m, although the top end could be a lot more if you were in a densely built up area and had to, say, buy 30 homes to get the bridge in.
Then there’s the running cost. LXs and their associated signalling assets draw a fair bit of power even when they are doing nothing. Their maintenance bill can be astronomical - one bridleway crossing of my acquaintance costs well into 6 figures to maintain each year because of the amount of control equipment it has on a busy bi directional main line. Detection treadles for example cost a couple of thousand pounds each to replace, and they need replacing every 2 years. Some crossings have dozens of them. Then there is the regular inspection (every few weeks or so), the risk assessment every year or so, the cleaning of signage, lights, barriers, CCTV or OD equipment etc. Etc. Crossings also fail - it’s not unusual for a crossing failure to rack up several hundred minutes delay, sometimes ten times that. On busy routes any failure is quickly into 6 figures of train delay compensation. There’s a Masters dissertation in there for someone to identify the annual running cost for different types of highway level crossing, but I expect the range to be again quite variable, perhaps £20k - £150k.
Then there’s the safety angle. I won’t need to explain this. Allied to the safety angle is that a LX is a place where ‘undeirables’ can access the railway unintentionally or otherwise. So whilst incidents caused by this are not accounted for as level crossing failures, they wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t there. Similarly telecoms failures which mean that trains have to be cautioned across LX don’t count as LX filaures, but the delays wouldn’t happen if they weren’t there.
And so on.
None of this happens with bridges. Annual maintenance cost is typically £1k.
And, finally, it doesn’t have to be a bridge. It is quite feasible to replace level crossings with a fence, and ‘invite’ road users to use an alternative route, sometimes one that has been constructed (much more cheaply than a bridge) specifically for the purpose. This is much, much more cost effective.