How Psychological Tricks can Keep People from Being Killed on the Tracks

The suburban rail system in the Indian megalopolis of Mumbai is best visualized as two slim arteries cutting through a crowded peninsula. On a map, the Western Line runs due north; the Central Line begins similarly, then wanders away into the city’s northeastern parts. These two lines and a couple of adjunct capillaries, making up a rail network dating back to 1857, carry roughly 7 million commuters a day, some of them over distances as long as 75 miles.
Every mile of this network runs through dense pockets of population, houses, and buildings; these are often just yards away from the tracks, separated at best by a low wall. Sixty percent of the length of the Central Line, for instance, has slums on either side. At rush hour, trains barrel through every couple of minutes, and pedestrian bridges over the tracks are rare. As a consequence, the most popular way for pedestrians to get between east and west Mumbai is to dash illegally over unguarded sections of the tracks.
The consequences are often fatal. On average, 10 people die daily by being hit as they’re crossing the tracks. Track trespassing is the largest everyday cause of unnatural deaths in Mumbai.
For just over a year, however, an experiment at Wadala station, on the Central Line, has been hinting at unorthodox solutions to this problem. On the surface, the experiment involves small, odd changes. Certain railway ties have been painted bright yellow; a new kind of signboard has been installed near the tracks; engine drivers have modified the way they hoot their warning whistles.
This modest tinkering has had dramatic results. In the six months before the experiment went live in December 2009, Wadala had recorded 23 track-crossing deaths, said M. C. Chauhan, a manager with the Central Railway’s Mumbai division. Between January and June 2010, that number had dropped to nine; in the next eight months, up until February 2011, only one death was registered. “We think the project is a huge success,” Chauhan said.

You can check everything about this BE intervention here, if you have 10 minutes: http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-08/news/29523051_1_mumbai-central-line-experiment