Recent news that General Motors is abandoning its $10 billion self-driving taxi initiative reminds us that some technological breakthroughs are still beyond our grasp. The freight rail industry faces the opposite problem: Tech can do more to save money and lives, but regulators have been reluctant to allow it.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has been operating at a snail’s pace to approve waivers requested by railroad companies to put available technology to work. Last month, major rail companies like BNSF, CSX and Union Pacific sued the FRA for its failure to take action on multiple waiver requests to allow them to take advantage of new train and track inspection technology.
“Rail safety is a shared responsibility, and the FRA’s unlawful delays are creating uncertainty and preventing critical advancements in safety and efficiency,” said Ian Jefferies, CEO of the Association of American Railroads.
In October, FRA proposed automated track inspection regulations to supplement visual inspections. Today’s regulations require human inspectors to walk the line or ride a truck vehicle and visually inspect things along the way. FRA does not want to change this practice.
“Workers performing visual inspections remain essential, as visual inspections check for numerous conditions beyond the scope of track geometry,” said FRA Administrator Amit Bose. “By requiring track geometry measurement system inspections in addition to the currently required visual inspections, FRA proposes to enhance safety while promoting innovation through the use of technology.”
The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii), an independent, nonpartisan public policy think tank focusing on infrastructure, wrote a brief calling for waivers to be approved.
“We think the action should generally be to approve these waiver requests because it is essentially an opportunity for the rail industry to implement more technology and more innovative practices that we do think the data shows lead to safety outcomes,” said Aii executive director Benjamin Dierker.
Labor unions such as the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division welcomed the rule. It was encouraging to see FRA consider human track inspectors. Still, Dierker said freight railroads are responsible for their upkeep and may be reluctant to invest in technology while also paying inspectors regularly for the same job.
“My position is not to say, ‘fire the inspector,’” Dierker said. “Our position is only that when the regulation sets up a prescriptive rule that says a human inspector must walk the track and visually inspect, it intentionally gets in the way of innovative outcomes like this track inspection technology that probably wasn’t around and not even conceived of when the regulation was written.”
Marc Scribner, senior transportation policy analyst for Reason Foundation, thinks automated track inspection benefits railroad companies, rail workers and communities safe from derailments and other adverse situations.
Most of the hazards that a railroad worker experiences are in the field. By substituting technology and putting a robot in there instead of a human being, Scribner said we would see a reduction in railroad employee injuries and fatalities.
“So, this technology has direct benefits to some of the people who are opposed for economic reasons, but it has substantial safety benefits just by the potential to remove human beings from hazards in the field,” Scribner said.
For workers losing out on job opportunities, Scribner said railroads could use this technology on lower-priority tracks and reallocate workers to more troubled areas. After all, there are things humans see that machines do not detect. A track inspection sensor affixed to the bottom or side of a train will not see a downed tree or some other obstacle that is one mile up the track. Human inspectors would see those problems and act on them to avoid accidents.
The United States railroad network is the largest in the world. It sees the transportation of more than 1.6 billion tons of freight annually. That is why Dierker and others believe FRA needs to get things done with waivers and be more open to new and innovative technologies. As Dierker described it, “Good policy leads to safety but also efficiency and resilience for infrastructure.”
And if the administration refuses?
“If the current FRA doesn’t act on this in the next month, this would be the type of thing that the next Trump administration could quickly act on,” Dierker said.
