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Testimony given by Jo Strang, Deputy Associate Administrator for Railroad Development

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of the fiscal year 2006 request of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). It is my privilege to appear before you as the Acting Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration on behalf of the hard working, dedicated employees of FRA. Today, I would like to discuss highlights of our major program activities and our plans for fiscal year 2006 for rail safety and research and development (R&D). Continued investment in these areas is critical to reducing the frequency of train accidents and employee injuries, and eliminating the risks posed to the general public by hazardous materials transportation. Our budget request for intercity passenger rail service will be the subject of the second panel at today’s hearing, and I will defer discussion of that topic to the later panel.

FY 2006 Budget Submission

While our budget directly supports five of the Department’s six strategic plan elements, our main goal remains safety and that is the subject I will focus on here this morning. The new initiatives in our request have direct impact on continuing our effort to improve the safety of the Nation’s railways. To accomplish this, our budget addresses small gaps in our safety and R&D staffing, and also proposes to invest significant funding in the installation of the Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS).

Safety

Rail safety is our most important strategic objective. The FY 2006 budget request for FRA safety-related activities is $188.7 million. These funds will support and enhance safety through a variety of programs and activities, including the promulgation and enforcement of rail safety regulations, the conduct of regulatory compliance inspections, the investigation of train accidents and railroad employee injuries, the education of railroad workers on safety laws and the public on dangers associated with railroads, and R&D investment in support of improved rail safety.

The railroad safety picture has brightened considerably over the last several years, and recent data indicate many successes. Based on preliminary 2004 data,

· Total rail-related accidents/incidents declined 3.92 percent
· The rate of train accidents on main line track declined by 2.34 percent
· Total rail-related injuries declined by 7.34 percent.
· The rate of total highway-rail grade crossing incidents fell by 2.62 percent.

Although the railroad industry’s overall safety record is very positive and most safety trends are moving in the right direction, very serious train accidents continue to occur, and the train accident rate has not declined at an acceptable pace in recent years. To meet these challenges, FRA is targeting its regulatory program on the most frequent causes of train accidents, focusing FRA’s oversight and inspection resources on the areas of highest risk. We are also accelerating our R&D efforts, especially those focused on technology, that have the potential to mitigate the largest risks.

Cause of Accidents

More than 70 percent of all train accidents arise from either human error or defective track. Accordingly, reducing these types of accidents is FRA’s highest priority. Human factor accidents are now the largest category of train accidents, accounting for 40 percent of all accidents in 2004. This year began with the tragic accident in Graniteville, South Carolina–a collision of a train with standing equipment that resulted in nine deaths due to the release of chlorine from a breached tank car. (We understand that a tenth death, possibly stemming from the accident, has recently occurred.) Based on preliminary findings, the cause of the Graniteville accident is believed to have been human error–the failure of a train crew to return a hand-operated, main track switch to its normal position after use (i.e., lined for the main train track). FRA acted immediately by issuing a safety advisory four days after the accident strongly urging all railroads to adopt revised procedures to guard against such a failure, and railroads responded swiftly and favorably to FRA’s recommendations.

To protect the general public and railroad employees, FRA seeks to do much more to reduce the likelihood of tragedies such as Graniteville. FRA’s analysis of accident trend data has revealed that a small number of particular kinds of human errors (e.g., not properly lining switches, failure to lock and latch switches, not properly conducting shoving movements) account for an inordinate number of human factor accidents. Although these matters are addressed by each railroad’s own operating rules, FRA’s regulations do not presently address them directly. FRA intends to take action, preferably based on consensus recommendations from its Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, to address these leading causes of train accidents. We need to act in order to heighten visibility of the problem and ensure application of best practices across the board to achieve substantial reductions in these types of easily preventable accidents. We took a first step in this direction on April 14, by holding an industry symposium to exchange views on the causes and possible remedies for these human-factor accidents.

Important research projects will support and supplement our regulatory efforts on human factors. We have signed a memorandum of agreement to kick off a new FRA-sponsored R&D pilot project with rail management and labor. This project will focus on gathering and analyzing data on “close calls” to identify the reasons for the human failures that cause near-accidents and to develop corrective actions to remedy those human factor causes. Another FRA R&D project will try to develop cost-effective technological counter-measures to misaligned switches and will conduct in-depth behavioral research on why employees make such errors.

The second-leading cause of train accidents is defective track. Over the last three years, FRA embarked on an aggressive program to focus its track-related enforcement efforts on the most likely accident causes. We will continue those efforts, which have generally helped move the track-caused accident trend lines in the proper direction. Here, too, our R&D efforts provide a critical complement to our regulatory efforts. Broken joint bars and broken rails account for a large number of track-related accidents, but the precursor conditions (cracks in joint bars and internal rail flaws) that lead to these causes are not readily detected. FRA is developing a high- speed photo inspection system that will detect joint bar defects much more efficiently than current methods. FRA is also working closely with the railroad industry to improve the speed and reliability of rail flaw detection vehicles.

Targeting the Regulatory Program

While our regulatory and research efforts are focused on the leading causes of accidents, we are also focusing our inspection resources on the areas of highest risk. FRA will soon begin phasing in a new National Inspection Plan (NIP) to improve the agency’s allocation and assignment of inspection resources. The NIP will use sophisticated trend analyses of inspection and accident data to produce an optimal distribution of resources within each of FRA’s eight regions to minimize fatality, injury, and accident rates. These trend analyses provide the advantage of looking forward in guiding FRA action rather than merely backward at what has occurred. We will begin implementing the NIP in the operating practices and track disciplines at the end of this month. These areas correspond to the two leading categories of accidents. In addition to using trend analysis to focus resources, FRA is carefully focusing on the inspection and accident data to ensure that FRA’s civil penalties continue to have a meaningful effect on encouraging compliance with FRA’s regulations. Civil penalties are FRA’s most frequently used enforcement tool. Therefore, FRA intends to amend its published schedules of civil penalties to ensure that the penalty amount for a violation of a particular regulatory provision more fully reflects the relative safety importance of the provision.

In support of this effort to direct our inspection resources to the areas of highest risk, FRA is requesting two hazardous materials Tank Car Facility Inspectors to perform inspections at facilities where tank cars are built or repaired. FRA’s experience with the quality control aspects of operations performed at these locations shows that, despite being required to do so since July 1, 1998, many major tank car companies are unable or unwilling to effectively implement Federal quality control requirements. Vigorous inspection at the source of the problem is the optimum way to significantly reduce nonconformance with Federal (and industry) standards. The reduction of hazardous material releases remains a priority performance goal for FRA; the addition of these positions will be critical to our success in reaching that goal.

Accelerating R&D Efforts

Our third area of emphasis is acceleration of our R&D efforts that have the greatest potential to reduce serious safety risks. For example, FRA is accelerating R&D efforts on the structural integrity of tank cars. Following the Minot, North Dakota, track-caused derailment in 2002, which resulted in one death and 11 injuries due to the release of anhydrous ammonia, FRA initiated a comprehensive, three-phase assessment of the consequences of accidents involving tank cars. Key objectives of this effort are characterizing the forces acting on tank cars during accidents and establishing a relative ranking of a tank car’s ability to withstand these forces under a variety of environmental conditions based on the car’s design and operational history. The Department’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) is hard at work on this now. This analysis will allow FRA to better understand the behavior of the tank cars involved in the Macdona, Texas, accident (a release of chlorine that killed three people in 2004) and the Graniteville accident. The ultimate goal of this research is to determine the relative risks involved in transporting hazardous materials in tank cars.

FRA also continues to pursue new approaches to passenger safety through its R&D program. These efforts are focused on strategies to better protect occupied passenger cars and mitigate occupant injuries, as carried out through advanced computer modeling by the Volpe Center and the conduct of full-scale crash tests at the Technology Transportation Center near Pueblo, Colorado. Our research is focusing on applying the principles of Crash Energy Management (CEM) to the next generation of passenger cars. CEM seeks to protect occupants by dissipating collision forces through the use of crush-zones in the non-occupied volume of the vehicles. FRA is also conducting a new review of the safety of cab-car forward operations to guide the agency’s regulatory efforts.

In support of these R&D efforts, FRA is requesting one R&D Program Manager to improve our strategic planning process. This position will address the deficiencies found in the recently completed Program Assessment Review Tool (PART) review of the program by the Office of Management and Budget, which recommended that FRA begin to employ a more formal systemic method for engaging stakeholders in the formulation of our research agendas. It also suggested the development of a clearer link between our research projects and our strategic goals. This new employee would focus on these issues, as well as other R&D strategic planning initiatives.

Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS)

Additionally, FRA is requesting an increase of just over $13 million to accelerate the installation of NDGPS, an enabling technology for a wide variety of industries and applications. NDGPS applications fall into five categories: the basic code-based NDGPS category, which provides 1 to 3 meter accuracy; the post-processing category, which provides 2 to 5 centimeter accuracy; stationary scientific applications; real-time High Accuracy NDGPS; and weather forecasting applications.

The NDGPS project is an excellent example of interagency cooperation and outstanding partnerships with States. Because NDGPS is an enabling technology for a wide variety of industries, many Federal and State agencies and universities have been willing to contribute funding, land, and engineering resources to the program to ensure its success. The agencies that have significantly contributed to the development of NDGPS include the following: the Departments of Transportation, the Air Force, the Army, Commerce, Interior, and Energy; the Tennessee Valley Authority; and the Voice of America.

In addition to the enormous contribution of the Federal agencies, many States have contributed engineering services, personnel time, land on which to build NDGPS sites, and funding. The States that have partnered with FRA in the deployment of NDGPS include Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The total of $20 million requested for FY 2006 will nearly complete dual coverage across the 48 contiguous States. Efforts throughout this year will continue to convert existing sites and add the required new sites to enable nationwide coverage. Additionally, existing sites will continue to be operated and maintained within these funds.

Closing

I present to you today a budget request that fully supports our multi-faceted efforts to continue the improving trends in most railroad safety indicators and to attack the safety problems posing the greatest challenge. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and am pleased to answer any questions you may have.