FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION : PASSENGER RAIL

R&D Project Development and Selection Process

At the urging of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee for Review of the FRA R&D Program, FRA has developed a structured process to identify safety research areas and select specific safety R&D projects for funding. The approach consists of five logical steps, as shown in Figure 3.1, which initially were applied to the safety R&D program and are reflected in this Five-Year RD&D Plan . Subsequently, as new information becomes available about sources of hazards, the logical steps may be followed for specific types of safety hazards to add to the list of potential safety R&D projects.

Step 1: Review of Rail Industry Historical and Potential Harm

The first step in the FRA safety R&D project development and selection process is a review of recent rail industry harm data and an assessment of causes of potential safety hazards. In this context, harm is considered to be the aggregate cost of fatalities, injuries and property damage due to rail accidents. Historical hazard data is compiled in FRA rail accident databases and accident investigation reports. The potential for future safety hazards can be understood by reviewing rail industry operating trends with expert knowledge of how railroad accidents occur.

The four relevant databases that hold historical rail incident data are the FRA’s Rail Accident/Incident Reporting System (RAIRS), Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Accident/Incident Database, Railroad Injury and Illness Summary Database, and Research and Special Programs Administration’s (RSPA’s) Hazardous Materials Incident Database. The information in these databases is very detailed in terms of circumstances that contribute to accidents. However, these databases, typically, do not address specific causes of the hazards that result from railroad accidents or incidents.

Detailed accident reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the FRA are the most important source of information, compiled by experts, about accident circumstances that contribute to hazards. While detailed investigations are undertaken for relatively few railroad accidents, the most serious accidents, in terms of hazards, have been intensively investigated and much can be learned through review of these reports, providing a deeper understanding of the characteristics of these relatively low-frequency, high-consequence events.

Finally, since accident databases and accident reports can only reflect historical accident causes and circumstances, railroad industry operational trends must also be taken into account. In this way, an understanding of causes of hazards that are not reflected in the historical databases can be developed.

Step 2: Conduct Failure Analysis

For a given accident cause or factor contributing to hazard, fault-tree logic is applied to identify specific items to be addressed by countermeasures. These specific items represent points along the accident chain-of-events at which the accident, or subsequent harm, or both, could have been prevented. Thus, the fault tree approach permits identification of multiple causes of accidents, enriching the information gleaned from the accident databases that typically assign a single, primary accident cause. Countermeasures are proposed with the goal of breaking the accident or hazard chain-of-events at the identified points. These countermeasures are advanced with an understanding of current regulatory and industry practices for the relevant area of rail operations.

Types of possible countermeasures include:

New or revised regulations.
Industry standards and best practices.
Equipment and infrastructure improvements.
Enforcement.
Education.

Step 3: Survey Government and Industry Countermeasures and R&D Requirements

Once specific countermeasures are identified, FRA R&D will review current and potential industry and government countermeasures to identify and assess areas of technological opportunity for R&D. That is, FRA R&D will identify countermeasures that would be enabled by R&D. For example, a potential operating rule may need research into the train speed regimes at which a particular type of train control system affords safe operation.

Step 4: Develop and Rate Individual Projects

For each countermeasure that may be aided by R&D, one or more R&D project summaries are developed to describe projects that provide information to enable the countermeasures. The project summaries are structured descriptions of projects that will be used to compare and select projects during R&D program development. Project summaries address expected outputs and outcomes, project costs and durations, as well as implementation issues for project results. Based on the project summaries, projects are then rated according to objective criteria for expected contribution to safety and likelihood of success. For a given program area, these project ratings are plotted in two dimensions (likelihood of success versus contribution to safety) to provide a high-level comparison tool for the project selection process.

Step 5: Select Projects and Assign to Program Areas

The last step in the FRA safety R&D program development process entails selecting projects for each program area based on the two-dimensional plots and project summaries. The goal is to select the best research opportunities available to obtain the best return on investment possible from the FRA R&D budget. That is, the most highly rated projects, regardless of program area, are selected to develop budget request estimates. Once the budget has been finalized, the projects are revisited, and funding levels and schedules are adjusted appropriately. The FRA R&D budget request, for each program area, becomes the sum of the funding required for each of the selected projects in the program area.

This process, augmented by Congressional directives as well as by requirements to carry out research in direct support of rulemakings mandated by law, was used by FRA in the preparation of its FY 2002 budget request and this Five-Year RD&D Plan , and FRA anticipates that it will continue to use it in the future in the development of the R&D program.

Figure 3.1. R&D Project Development and Selection Process

CURRENT STATUS

At the time this Five-Year RD&D Plan was prepared, the process described above had been applied to the Grade Crossing and Track Systems Research Program areas.

Grade Crossing Safety Research Program

Exercise of the project identification process to the Grade Crossing Research Program, which is described in Sections 4.2 , 4.7 , and 5.3 , involved collecting accident information from the Grade Crossing Accident/Incident database. For the period analyzed (1991 through 1997) the hazard incurred from grade crossing accidents is comprised of 3955 highway user fatalities, 12,814 injuries and $130 million in highway vehicle property damage. Using accepted figures for the cost of human life and injury, this represents an aggregate hazard on the order of $14.3 billion (approximately $2 billion per year). While these figures may seem alarming, the historical data must be considered in light of the large number of crossings (260,000) in the U.S. In that context, the data would imply one grade crossing fatality every 400 years. Obviously, the likelihood of a fatality is not the same for all crossings. Review of the accident data during the course of this investigation, as well as other studies, have drawn the important conclusion that research aimed at reducing crossing accidents must realize the distinction between high-risk and the larger number of low-risk crossings. Over the last 20 years, grade crossing accidents have diminished considerably. This reduction has been achieved through application of numerous solutions. To effect further improvements in the accident record requires detailed examination of the conditions which result in accidents.

The accident information was assembled and the fault tree logic applied in order to discern primary causes and other conditions that contribute to these accidents. This step identified accident causes related to operational characteristics of crossing equipment and causes that stem from the characteristics and behavior of motorists involved in crossing accidents. Nearly 55 percent of the harm incurred in grade crossing accidents occurred at passive crossings (which account for nearly 80 percent of the crossings in the U.S.). The remaining 45 percent of the harm was the result of accidents at crossings equipped with either gates, lights (or both) or staffed by a watchman. Crossings with these “active” warning devices are exposed to the vast majority of the traffic (highway vehicles and trains).

Review of the data identified candidate research topics that included both human factors and crossing technology aspects. These topics were then logically aggregated into research projects to simplify the rating and selection process. Many of the projects identified are either ongoing or represent logical extensions to current research. Some of the projects were deemed to be better suited for implementation by other agencies. This is an important finding, since FHWA, NHTSA, and FTA in addition to FRA, carry out grade crossing research activities.

The resulting grade crossing accident mitigation projects represent three integrated themes: improve warning device effectiveness, improve vehicle driver compliance with crossing warnings, and evaluate non-traditional techniques and procedures to avoid collisions at grade crossings.

The likelihood of success and safety impact of each of the projects was assigned by an expert group. Four projects received high likelihood of success and high safety rankings. Of these, three were selected for new or continued funding. One of the seven projects with high likelihood of success and medium safety rankings was selected for new funding. Six projects with lower ranking were identified for new or continued funding.

Track and Structures Research Program

A similar strategy was applied to FRA’s Track and Structures Research Program, which is described in full in Section 4.4 . The historical accident information attributed to track conditions was obtained from the RAIRS database for the period 1988-1998. The RAIRS database is comprised of 356 unique cause codes, of which over 70 are track-related. This subset represents nearly 12,000 incidents resulting in 71 fatalities and nearly 800 injuries. When the over $820 million in property damage is included, the total harm for track-caused accidents exceeds $1.2 billion for the period analyzed.

The fault tree logic process was applied to the selected incidents. Over 80 candidate research topics were distilled into 37 research projects, and then considered in the context of the current R&D program. FRA’s Track Systems Research Program consists of five primary themes: right-of-way integrity, track appliances, rail integrity, track geometry, and ties and fastenings. Each of the five themes is comprised of multiple subordinate research areas. The projects developed through application of the five-step approach were compared to the current Track Systems Research Five-Year Plan. It was found that this plan encompassed nearly all of the research suggested by the project development and selection process. This is an encouraging finding, and implies that the general direction of track research activities is aligned with results obtained by applying the more explicit process.

FUTURE PLANS

The project development and selection process will be applied to the remaining FRA R&D program areas. To guarantee continued success of the technique, the analysis will be revisited for each program area periodically. This maintenance will also ensure that changes in railroad operating trends are captured and considered in future R&D project development activities.