Operation Lifesaver is a public education program co-sponsored by the Railway Association of Canada and Transport Canada. It concentrates on public awareness to reduce the crossing and trespassing incident rate along Canada's railways and has been instrumental in lowering crossing collisions by more than 60 per cent since its founding in 1981. Direction 2006 is a special government-industry initiative devoted to reducing crossing collisions by another 50 per cent within the next five years.

In 2001, 96 men, women and children were killed in highway/railway crossing collisions and while trespassing on railway property in Canada. Virtually all were avoidable by the exercise of due caution.

Operation Lifesaver and Direction 2006 work closely with provincial safety councils, police forces, railway unions, and public interest organizations. A nationwide corps of volunteers conducts workshops in schools, among service clubs and other public interest groups.

Many police forces have been lending their active support through special programs that involve officers riding trains and monitoring level crossings. As a result, the police are laying more charges and issuing more warnings for crossing and trespassing violations.

The police have also been active on the education front, carrying the safety message to more than 1.4 million Canadians last year through visits to schools, service groups and mall displays. More than 500 municipal, provincial and federal police officers and other volunteers have been trained and supplied with information kits for public distribution.

As well, Transport Canada's Grade Crossing Improvement Program contributes an average of $7.5 million a year to improve highway/railway crossing safety across Canada. Improvements range from installation of flashing lights and gates to the addition of new operating circuits or timing devices at crossings.

This concerted public information and education campaign is focused on changing people's perception of risk to their own safety and their personal behavior involving railway tracks and trains. It has involved the production of radio public service announcements by police officers, locomotive engineers and others who have been directly affected and were distributed by satellite and Internet to 500 radio stations across Canada.

. A series of English and French television public service announcements, aimed at major market, community television stations and specialty channels, dramatize the potential hazards of driving on highway/railway crossings and of trespassing on railway property. With the approach of winter, a video and public service announcement directed at snowmobile operators, was launched.

Briefing kits and brochures were broadly distributed and public education safety blitzes conducted in areas of high risk, with the full support of program partners in government, industry and the communities, to save lives along Canada's railways.