Caltrain reports RailSentry pilot, fencing progress and a smart‑restroom pilot at Palo Alto station

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Caltrain staff told the Palo Alto Rail Committee on March 18 that several near‑term safety and amenity efforts are underway along the corridor, including an AI camera pilot at Churchill Avenue, fence replacement, and a restroom pilot at Palo Alto Station.

Navi Dhaliwal, Caltrain’s manager of government and community affairs, said RailSentry — a system that uses cameras and lidar to observe grade‑crossing behavior — was installed at Churchill in March and is “currently in its learning mode.” Dhaliwal said the learning phase typically takes about two to three weeks to gather representative data to tune geofencing and notification rules. Caltrain plans to review footage and share findings with the city and the committee.

Caltrain also reported that contractors had replaced about 1,700 feet of new, taller fencing out of roughly 4,000 feet planned along the Palo Alto corridor, with a previously shared schedule listing April 17 as a target for completion. Dhaliwal said the new fencing includes additional “winglets” intended to make climbing more difficult and reduce access to the track.

On a station amenity pilot, Caltrain said Thrown Labs has installed smart restrooms at several stations and proposed a one‑year pilot at Palo Alto Station. Dhaliwal said the Thrown restrooms are ADA accessible, cleaned multiple times daily by staff, and managed through text or QR access. She told the committee that staff at Redwood City and Sunnyvale had recorded roughly 350 uses with no reported vandalism to date.

City staff described progress on quiet‑zone and crossing safety work. Shripan Bhatia, senior engineer with the city, said the Palo Alto Crossing quiet‑zone project has CPUC approval to proceed to construction and has completed design; the city is preparing construction procurement. For Churchill, Meadow and Charleston crossings, Bhatia said the city has conceptual plans, has met with FRA and CPUC, and is scheduling community outreach — a meeting was tentatively set for April 16 at City Hall at 6 p.m. He said notices to FRA (notice of intent and later notice of implementation) will be required as the quiet‑zone process advances.

Committee members and residents raised questions about fence coverage, the effectiveness and limits of technologies such as RailSentry and geofencing, and the duration and trade‑offs of quiet‑zone approaches including wayside horns. City staff said the quiet‑zone and wayside‑horn processes require coordination and concurrence from state and federal agencies and estimated a full quiet‑zone implementation can take several years; staff characterized the overall process as taking multiple months to years because of required agency reviews and statutory notice periods.

Why it matters: those measures — fences, sensors, geofencing, wayside horns and quiet‑zone permitting — are pragmatic, near‑term actions that city and Caltrain officials say can reduce risks while the larger grade‑separation engineering proceeds.