    Rail Safety: The Federal Railroad Administration Is Better
    Targeting Its Oversight, but Needs to Assess the Impact of Its
    Efforts (30-JAN-07, GAO-07-390T).

    Although the overall safety record of the railroad industry, as
    measured by the number of train accidents per million miles
    traveled, has improved markedly since 1980, there has been little
    or no overall improvement over the past decade. Serious accidents
    resulting in injuries and deaths continue to occur, such as one
    in Graniteville, South Carolina, that resulted in 9 deaths and
    292 injuries. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) develops
    safety standards and inspects and enforces railroads' compliance
    with these standards. On January 26, 2007, GAO reported on FRA's
    overall safety oversight strategy. (See GAO-07-149.) The report
    discussed how FRA (1) focuses its efforts on the highest priority
    risks related to train accidents in planning its oversight, (2)
    identifies safety problems on railroad systems in carrying out
    its oversight, and (3) assesses the impact of its oversight
    efforts on safety. GAO recommended that FRA (1) put into place
    measures of the results of its inspection and enforcement
    programs and (2) evaluate its enforcement program. In reviewing a
    draft of that report, the Department of Transportation did not
    provide overall views on its contents or its recommendations. The
    statement is based on GAO's recent report.
    -------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
    REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-390T
        ACCNO:   A65386
      TITLE:     Rail Safety: The Federal Railroad Administration Is
    Better Targeting Its Oversight, but Needs to Assess the Impact of
    Its Efforts
         DATE:   01/30/2007
      SUBJECT:   Accident prevention
    	     Accidents
    	     Agency evaluation
    	     Inspection
    	     Performance measures
    	     Policy evaluation
    	     Railroad accidents
    	     Railroad industry
    	     Railroad regulation
    	     Railroad safety
    	     Risk management
    	     Safety regulation
    	     Safety standards
    	     Strategic planning
    	     Transportation
    	     Government agency oversight
    	     Policies and procedures
    	     FRA National Rail Safety Action Plan

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    GAO-07-390T

         * [1]Background
         * [2]FRA Has Made Progress in Targeting Its Oversight Efforts on

              * [3]FRA Is Making a Number of Efforts to Reduce Accidents Caused
              * [4]FRA Has Made Progress in Targeting Its Inspections on the Ba

         * [5]FRA Relies Primarily on Direct Inspections to Identify Safet

              * [6]FRA's Oversight Identifies a Range of Problems on Railroad S
              * [7]Several Other Organizations Have Implemented Comprehensive A

         * [8]FRA Measures Its Progress in Achieving a Variety of Safety G

              * [9]FRA Has Established a Range of Safety Goals and Measures, bu
              * [10]FRA Has Made Changes in Response to Evaluations but Has Not

         * [11]GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgement

              * [12]Order by Mail or Phone

    Testimony

    Before the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials,
    Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives

    United States Government Accountability Office

    GAO

    For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m. EST

    Tuesday, January 30, 2007

    RAIL SAFETY

    The Federal Railroad Administration Is Better Targeting Its Oversight, but
    Needs to Assess the Impact of Its Efforts

    Statement of Katherine Siggerud
    Physical Infrastructure Issues

    GAO-07-390T

    Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee:

    We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this hearing today to
    discuss the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) rail safety oversight
    activities. Although the overall safety record in the railroad industry,
    as measured by the number of train accidents per million miles traveled,
    has improved markedly since 1980, there has been little or no overall
    improvement over the past decade. (See fig. 1.) Serious accidents
    resulting in injuries, deaths, and property damage continue to occur.

    Figure 1: Train Accident Rates, 1980 through 2005

    My remarks center on work we have recently completed on FRA's overall
    safety oversight strategy. Specifically, we examined how FRA (1) focuses
    its efforts on the highest priority risks related to train accidents in
    planning its safety oversight, (2) identifies safety problems on railroad
    systems in carrying out its oversight, and (3) assesses the impact of its
    oversight efforts on safety. Our findings are discussed in more detail in
    our report, which was released last week.^1

    Our work was based on a review of laws, regulations, and FRA plans and
    guidance as well as discussions with FRA officials and with a range of
    external stakeholders, including railroads, unions, and state railroad
    safety organizations. We reviewed FRA inspection and enforcement data for
    1996 through 2005. In addition, we examined risk management principles and
    safety oversight approaches used by other modal administrations within the
    Department of Transportation and other organizations that have similar
    safety missions in order to determine their possible application to FRA.
    Our work focused on FRA oversight efforts to reduce the rate of train
    accidents rather than those to reduce highway-rail crossing and
    trespassing accidents because (1) the Department of Transportation's
    Inspector General has recently assessed efforts to reduce highway-rail
    crossing accidents^2 and (2) trespassing accidents primarily involve
    issues not related to railroad safety performance. As part of our review,
    we assessed internal controls and the reliability of the data elements
    needed for this engagement and determined that the data elements were
    sufficiently reliable for our purposes. We conducted our work from
    November 2005 through January 2007 in accordance with generally accepted
    government auditing standards.

    In summary:

               o In planning its safety oversight, FRA is focusing its efforts on
               the highest priority risks related to train accidents through
               various initiatives aimed at addressing the main causes of these
               accidents as well as through improvements in its inspection
               planning approach. The agency's overall strategy for targeting its
               oversight at the greatest risks is the National Rail Safety Action
               Plan, which FRA issued in May 2005. This plan provides a
               reasonable framework for guiding the agency's efforts to improve
               its oversight. It includes initiatives to address the two main
               causes of train accidents--human factors and defective track--and
               FRA has pursued some additional initiatives to address these
               causes since issuing the plan.^3 These initiatives--which include
               new regulations, research on new technologies and approaches for
               improving safety, and new vehicles for inspecting track--are
               promising. However, most of them have not yet been fully
               implemented, and their overall impact on safety will probably not
               be apparent for a number of years. Furthermore, the ability of
               many of these efforts to improve safety will depend on voluntary
               actions by railroads. In addition, the action plan announced a new
               approach for planning inspections that uses data-driven models to
               focus inspectors' efforts on locations that are likely to have
               safety problems.

               o In carrying out its safety oversight, FRA identifies safety
               problems on railroad systems mainly through routine inspections
               that determine whether operating practices, track, and equipment,
               such as signals and locomotives, are in compliance with minimum
               safety standards. However, FRA inspections cover only about 0.2
               percent of railroads' operations each year. Also, these
               inspections are not designed to determine how well railroads are
               managing safety risks throughout their systems that could lead to
               accidents. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA),
               the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
               (PHMSA), and Transport Canada have implemented approaches to
               oversee the management of safety risks by U.S. commuter railroads,
               U.S. pipelines, and Canadian railroads, respectively.^4 These
               oversight approaches complement, rather than replace, traditional
               compliance inspections and, therefore, provide additional
               assurance of safety.

               o FRA uses a broad range of goals and measures to assess the
               impact of its oversight efforts on safety. For example, it has
               developed new goals to target its inspection and enforcement
               efforts at reducing various types of railroad accidents and
               related measures to track its progress. However, FRA lacks
               measures of the direct results of its inspection and enforcement
               programs, such as measures of the extent to which these programs
               have resulted in the correction of identified safety problems.
               Furthermore, FRA has not evaluated the effectiveness of its
               enforcement program in achieving desired results. Both performance
               measures and evaluations can provide valuable information on
               program results that helps hold agencies accountable for the
               performance of their programs. In our recent report, we
               recommended that FRA develop and implement measures of the direct
               results of its inspection and enforcement programs and evaluate
               its enforcement program. FRA reviewed a draft of our report but
               did not comment on our recommendations.

    			  Background

               On average, about 450 people have been injured and 14 people have
               been killed in train accidents each year over the past decade,
               from 1996 through 2005, exclusive of highway-railroad grade
               crossing and trespassing accidents. In recent years, a number of
               serious accidents raised concerns about the level of safety in the
               railroad industry. For example, as you are aware, in 2005, a train
               collision in Graniteville, South Carolina, resulted in the
               evacuation of 5,400 people, 292 injuries, and 9 deaths.

               FRA develops and enforces regulations for the railroad industry
               that include numerous requirements related to safety, including
               requirements governing track, signal and train control systems,
               grade crossing warning device systems, mechanical equipment--such
               as locomotives and tank cars--and railroad operating practices.
               FRA also enforces hazardous materials regulations issued by PHMSA
               as they relate to the safe transportation of such materials by
               rail. FRA's inspectors generally specialize in one of five areas,
               called inspection disciplines: (1) operating practices, (2) track,
               (3) hazardous materials, (4) signal and train control, and (5)
               motive power and equipment. FRA's policy is for inspectors to
               encourage railroads to comply voluntarily. When railroads do not
               comply voluntarily or identified problems are serious, FRA may
               cite violations and take enforcement actions, most frequently
               civil penalties, to promote compliance with its regulations. FRA
               is authorized to negotiate civil penalties with railroads and
               exercises this authority. FRA conducts additional oversight of
               Class I railroads through the Railroad System Oversight program.^5
               Under this program, the agency assigns an FRA manager for each
               Class I railroad to cooperate with it on identifying and resolving
               safety issues.

               FRA is a small agency, especially in relation to the industry it
               regulates. As of July 2006, FRA had about 660 safety staff,
               including about 400 inspectors in the field (in its regional,
               district, and local offices). In addition, 30 state oversight
               agencies, with about 160 inspectors, participate in a partnership
               program with FRA to conduct safety oversight activities at
               railroads' operating sites. In contrast, the railroad industry
               consists of about 700 railroads with about 235,000 employees,^6
               219,000 miles of track in operation, 158,000 signals and switches,
               and over 1.6 million locomotives and cars.

    			  FRA Has Made Progress in Targeting Its Oversight Efforts on the
    			  Basis of Risk

               In planning its safety oversight, FRA focuses its efforts on the
               highest priority risks related to train accidents through a number
               of initiatives. FRA's May 2005 National Rail Safety Action Plan
               provides a reasonable framework for the agency's efforts to target
               its oversight at the highest priority risks. The plan outlines
               initiatives aimed at reducing the main types of train accidents,
               those caused by human factors and track defects. Since issuing the
               plan, the agency has pursued additional initiatives to target
               risks posed by these causes. However, these efforts are in varying
               stages of development or implementation and, while some individual
               initiatives may start showing results in the next year or two,
               their overall impact on safety will probably not be apparent for a
               number of years. FRA has also developed a new approach for
               planning its inspections, based on greater use of its accident and
               inspection data. While these initiatives are promising, it is too
               early to assess their impact.

    			  FRA Is Making a Number of Efforts to Reduce Accidents Caused by
    			  Human Factors and Track Defects, but Results Are Not Yet Clear

               In 2005, 72 percent of all train accidents in the United States
               were attributable to either human factors or track defects. Human
               factor accidents result from unsafe acts of individuals, such as
               employee errors, and can occur for a number of reasons, such as
               employee fatigue or inadequate supervision or training. Recent FRA
               initiatives to reduce accidents caused by human factors include

               o proposed regulations aimed at reducing the most common causes of
               these accidents, such as improper positioning of track switches;^7

               o a 5-year pilot project to establish a confidential voluntary
               system for reporting and learning from close call incidents;^8
               o a study to develop a fatigue model that could be used by
               railroads to improve train crew scheduling practices and prevent
               worker fatigue;^9 and

               o a proposed 5-year pilot project that would use risk management
               to help reduce human factor accidents, as well as other types of
               accidents, at selected railroad worksites.

               Track defects, which can cause derailments, include rails that are
               uneven or too wide apart or rails or joint bars that are cracked
               or broken. Key recent FRA initiatives to reduce accidents caused
               by track defects include

               o two additional track inspection vehicles that can precisely
               measure track during inspections;^10 and

               o new regulations on inspections of rail joints in continuous
               welded rail track and plans to develop additional regulations to
               improve railroads' management of this type of track.^11

               These initiatives are in varying stages of development or
               implementation and use a variety of approaches, some quite
               innovative, for addressing the causes of human factor and track
               accidents. While they have the potential to eventually reduce
               these types of accidents, it is too early to predict their
               outcomes. The human factor initiatives, except for the proposed
               regulations, depend on voluntary actions by railroads, and, in
               some cases, labor as well, for their success.

    			  FRA Has Made Progress in Targeting Its Inspections on the Basis
    			  of Risk

               FRA has developed a new approach--the National Inspection
               Plan--for using available data to target its inspections at the
               greatest safety risks. The plan provides guidance to each regional
               office on how its inspectors within each of the five inspection
               disciplines should divide up their work by railroad and state. It
               is based on trend analyses of accident, inspection, and other data
               that predict locations where train accidents and incidents are
               likely to occur within each region and provide the optimal
               allocation of inspection resources to prevent accidents.

               Previously, FRA had a less structured, less consistent, and less
               data-driven approach for planning inspections. According to agency
               officials, each region prepared its own inspection plan, based on
               judgments about appropriate priorities and analysis of available
               data. However, the use of data was not consistent from region to
               region. Inspectors had greater discretion about where to inspect
               and based decisions about priorities on their knowledge of their
               inspection territories.

               FRA's new approach for planning its inspection activity allows it
               to better target the greatest safety risks and make more effective
               use of its inspectors. However, it is not yet clear whether the
               new approach will lead to a prioritization of inspection levels
               across regions and inspection disciplines or improved safety.

    			  FRA Relies Primarily on Direct Inspections to Identify Safety
    			  Problems and Does Not Oversee Railroads� Management of Safety
    			  Risks

               In carrying out its safety oversight, FRA identifies a range of
               safety problems on railroad systems mainly through routine
               inspections to determine whether operations, track, and equipment
               are in compliance with safety standards. FRA's inspections do not
               attempt to determine how well railroads are managing safety risks
               throughout their systems. APTA, PHMSA, and Transport Canada have
               implemented approaches to oversee the management of safety risks
               by U.S. commuter railroads, U.S. pipelines, and Canadian
               railroads, respectively. These oversight approaches complement,
               rather than replace, traditional compliance inspections and
               therefore provide additional assurance of safety.

    			  FRA�s Oversight Identifies a Range of Problems on Railroad Systems

               FRA primarily monitors railroads' compliance through routine
               inspections by individual inspectors at specific sites on
               railroads' systems. Inspectors typically cover a range of
               standards within their discipline during these inspections. This
               inspection approach focuses on direct observations of specific
               components of the train, related equipment, and railroad
               property--including the track and signal systems--as well as
               operating practices to determine whether they meet FRA's
               standards. (See fig. 2.) Inspectors also examine railroads'
               inspection and maintenance records. The railroads have their own
               inspectors who are responsible for ensuring that railroad
               equipment, track, and operations meet federal rail safety
               standards.

               Figure 2: FRA Inspector Inspecting Train Cars

               FRA also conducts more in-depth inspection efforts that generally
               focus on railroads' compliance in a particular area, such as their
               inspections of employees' adherence to operating rules. These
               efforts often involve a team conducting separate inspections at
               multiple sites, generally within one of FRA's eight regions. FRA
               also periodically conducts in-depth inspections of some systemwide
               programs that railroads are required to implement, such as
               employee drug and alcohol testing programs.

               In 2005, federal and state inspectors conducted about 63,000
               inspections. According to FRA, routine inspections constituted
               about 75 percent of the inspections of railroads, and in-depth
               inspections accounted for about 11 percent. The remainder of these
               inspections (14 percent) consisted of other types of activities,
               such as investigations of accidents and complaints. This approach
               to oversight enables FRA inspectors and managers to identify a
               wide range of safety problems. Inspectors identify specific
               compliance problems--conditions that do not meet FRA's
               standards--at sites they visit by citing defects. Inspectors cite
               violations of safety standards for those defects that they believe
               warrant enforcement action. They consider a number of factors in
               making this decision, including the railroad's history of
               compliance at that location and the seriousness of the
               noncompliance (such as whether it is likely to cause accidents,
               injuries, or releases of hazardous materials). Inspectors in some
               disciplines cite more defects and violations than others. (See
               fig. 3.)

               Figure 3: Inspections Conducted and Defects and Violations Cited,
               by Inspection Discipline, in 2005

               Note: These figures include inspections carried out by both
               federal and state inspectors. Inspectors are instructed to cite
               defects for most instances of noncompliance found, but have
               discretion in determining which instances to cite as violations
               warranting enforcement action.

               The motive power and equipment discipline cites almost half of all
               defects and over a third of all violations. FRA officials told us
               that the standards in this inspection discipline are the most
               prescriptive, making defects and violations easier to find.
               However, these types of defects cause a much smaller proportion of
               accidents than human factors and track defects.^12 The most
               frequently cited violations include those for noncompliance with
               standards for locomotives and freight cars, track conditions,
               recordkeeping on the inspection and repair of equipment and track,
               and the condition of hazardous materials tank cars.

    			  Several Other Organizations Have Implemented Comprehensive
    			  Approaches for Overseeing the Management of Safety Risks in
    			  Transportation Industries

               FRA officials have noted that their approach of directly
               inspecting safety conditions and targeting locations that are most
               likely to have compliance problems provides a safety net and holds
               railroad management accountable. However, because the number of
               FRA and state inspectors is small relative to the size of railroad
               operations, FRA inspections can cover only a very small proportion
               of railroad operations (0.2 percent). Also, FRA targets
               inspections at locations on railroads' systems where accidents
               have occurred, among other factors, rather than overseeing whether
               railroads systematically identify and address safety risks that
               could lead to accidents.

               Risk management can help to improve systemwide safety by
               systematically identifying and assessing risks associated with
               various safety hazards and prioritizing them so that resources may
               be allocated to address the highest risks first. It also can help
               in ensuring that the most appropriate alternatives to prevent or
               mitigate the effects of hazards are designed and implemented. A
               framework for risk management based on industry best practices and
               other criteria that we have developed divides risk management into
               five major phases: (1) setting strategic goals and objectives, and
               determining constraints; (2) assessing risks; (3) evaluating
               alternatives for addressing these risks; (4) selecting the
               appropriate alternatives; and (5) implementing the alternatives
               and monitoring the progress made and results achieved.

               Other transportation oversight organizations have developed and
               implemented approaches for overseeing industries' overall
               management of safety risks. In particular, during the last 10
               years, APTA, PHMSA, and Transport Canada have developed and
               implemented such oversight approaches for U.S. commuter railroads,
               U.S. pipelines, and Canadian railroads, respectively. These
               approaches complement, rather than replace, traditional compliance
               inspections. APTA provides guidelines to commuter railroads on
               managing the safety of their systems--including safety risks--and
               audits their plans for and implementation of this management
               approach.^13 PHMSA requires that pipeline operators develop
               "integrity management" programs to manage risk in areas--such as
               those that are densely populated--where leaks or ruptures could
               have the greatest impact on public safety and inspects operators'
               compliance with these requirements.^14 In Canada, the department
               responsible for overseeing railroad safety, Transport Canada,
               requires that railroads establish safety management systems that
               include risk management and assesses these systems.^15 APTA,
               PHMSA, and Transport Canada have emphasized that risk management
               provides a higher standard of performance than traditional safety
               regulation based on compliance alone.

               We have reviewed PHMSA's gas transmission pipeline integrity
               management oversight approach and have recently concluded that it
               enhances public safety.^16 Operators told us that the primary
               benefit of the program is the comprehensive knowledge they acquire
               about the condition of their pipelines. APTA and Transport Canada
               officials have told us that their oversight approaches have not
               been formally evaluated to determine their effectiveness.

               FRA has taken some steps in a limited number of areas to oversee
               and encourage risk management in the railroad industry. For
               example, the agency has several regulations in place that require
               railroads to use a risk-based approach for managing safety in some
               specific areas, such as the operation of high-speed passenger
               trains. In addition, FRA is considering establishing a pilot
               project to examine how a risk management approach could be used
               voluntarily in the railroad industry to reduce human factor and
               other types of accidents.

               Oversight of railroads' overall approach for managing safety risks
               on their systems, in addition to FRA's existing
               discipline-specific, compliance-based oversight, has the potential
               to provide additional assurance of safety. However, developing and
               implementing such a new oversight approach would be a major
               undertaking for the agency, and FRA's current initiatives to
               reduce train accidents need time to mature to demonstrate their
               effects. As a result, we did not recommend in our recent report
               that FRA adopt an approach for overseeing railroads' management of
               safety risks.

    			  FRA Measures Its Progress in Achieving a Variety of Safety Goals,
    			  but Has Limited Information on the Direct Results of Its Oversight

               FRA has a broad range of goals and measures that it uses to
               provide direction to and track the performance of its safety
               oversight activities. However, its ability to make informed
               decisions about its inspection and enforcement programs is limited
               because it lacks measures of the intermediate outcomes, or direct
               results, of these programs that would show how they are
               contributing toward the end outcomes, or ultimate safety
               improvements, that the agency seeks to achieve. Furthermore, FRA
               has not evaluated the effectiveness of its enforcement approach.
               Both performance measures and evaluations can provide valuable
               information on program results that helps hold agencies
               accountable for their programs' performance.

    			  FRA Has Established a Range of Safety Goals and Measures, but
    			  Information on Direct Results Is Limited

               To its credit, FRA has adopted a range of useful safety
               performance goals and related measures. These goals help the
               agency target its oversight efforts to achieve the department's
               goals of reducing (1) the rate of rail-related accidents and
               incidents and (2) the number of serious hazardous materials
               releases. For example, FRA has recently established new agencywide
               safety goals that are aligned with its five inspection disciplines
               and its grade-crossing efforts. These include goals to reduce the
               rates of various types of train accidents--including those caused
               by human factors, track defects, and equipment failure--as well as
               hazardous materials releases and grade-crossing incidents. These
               departmental and agency goals represent the key end outcomes, or
               ultimate results, FRA seeks to achieve through its oversight
               efforts. FRA has also established related measures that help the
               agency determine and demonstrate its progress in meeting the
               desired goals. In addition, it has also established similar goals
               and measures for each of its eight regional offices. FRA also uses
               various other measures to manage its oversight efforts, such as
               numbers of inspections performed and enforcement actions taken.

               While FRA has developed a range of goals and measures related to
               its oversight of railroad safety, it lacks measures of the desired
               intermediate outcomes, or direct results, of its inspection and
               enforcement efforts--the correction of identified safety problems
               and improvements in compliance. (See fig. 4.) According to FRA
               officials, inspectors review reports on corrective actions
               provided by railroads and always follow up on serious identified
               problems to ensure that they are corrected. However, the agency
               does not measure the extent to which the identified safety
               problems have been corrected. FRA also lacks overall measures of
               railroads' compliance. Officials have emphasized that the agency
               relies on inspectors' day-to-day oversight of and interaction with
               railroads to track compliance.^17

    1See GAO, The Federal Railroad Administration Is Taking Steps to Better
    Target Its Oversight, but Assessment of Results Is Needed to Determine
    Impact, [13]GAO-07-149 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 26, 2007).

    ^2See U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of the Inspector General,
    Audit of Oversight of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Accident Reporting,
    Investigations and Safety Regulations, MH-2006-016 (Washington, D.C.: Nov.
    28, 2005) and Report on the Audit of the Highway-Rail Grade Crossing
    Safety Program, MH-2004-065 (Washington, D.C.: June 16, 2004).

    ^3Generally, human factors are behaviors that affect job performance, such
    as incorrectly setting switches.

    ^4Risk management can be described as a systematic approach for
    identifying, analyzing, and controlling risks.

    ^5For 2005, the Surface Transportation Board has defined Class I railroads
    as railroads earning adjusted annual operating revenues of $319.3 million
    or more.

    ^6This number does not include contractor employees hired by the
    railroads.

    ^7FRA issued this proposed regulation in October 2006 and plans to issue a
    final regulation by the end of 2007.

    ^8According to FRA, a close call represents a situation in which an
    ongoing sequence of events was stopped from developing further, preventing
    the occurrence of potentially serious safety-related consequences.

    ^9Railroad employees often work long hours and have unpredictable and
    fluctuating work schedules. FRA and the National Transportation Safety
    Board have identified employee fatigue as a significant factor in many
    train accidents. FRA does not have the authority to regulate railroad
    worker duty hours.

    ^10According to FRA, these additional vehicles will allow the agency to
    triple the miles of track that it is able to inspect per year, to nearly
    100,000 miles. FRA also inspects track conditions through manual
    inspections conducted on foot or in on-track equipment.

    ^11In continuous welded rail track, rails are welded together to form one
    continuous rail that may be several miles long. There may be joints in
    this rail for several reasons, including the need to replace a section of
    defective rail.

    ^12FRA officials have explained that operating practices inspectors have
    had a limited ability to cite defects and violations because of the way
    regulations in this area are written. For example, as noted previously,
    the regulations contain general requirements about railroads' programs for
    inspecting employees' adherence to operating rules and do not specifically
    require that employees follow these rules. The agency expects that its
    proposed regulations on operating rules will improve its ability to
    enforce in this area, because the requirements will be more stringent than
    existing regulations.

    ^13APTA is a nonprofit organization representing the transit industry,
    including U.S. commuter rail systems.

    ^14PHMSA administers the national regulatory program to ensure the safe
    transportation of hazardous liquids and natural gas by pipeline.

    ^15Transport Canada oversees the safety and security of Canada's rail,
    marine, highway, and aviation operations.

    ^16GAO, Natural Gas Pipeline Safety: Integrity Management Benefits Public
    Safety, but Consistency of Performance Measures Should Be Improved.
    [14]GAO-06-946 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 8, 2006).

    Figure 4: How FRA's Inspection and Enforcement Programs Contribute to Rail
    Safety

    Note: The program outputs and intermediate outcomes included in this
    figure are examples of the outputs and intended direct results of FRA's
    inspection and enforcement programs. We identified these as outputs and
    intermediate outcomes based on discussions with FRA officials; FRA itself
    has not identified them as such.

    Without measures of intermediate outcomes, the extent to which FRA's
    inspection and enforcement programs are achieving direct results and
    contributing to desired end outcomes is not clear. We recognize that
    developing such measures would be difficult and that it is challenging for
    regulatory agencies to develop such measures. Nevertheless, some other
    regulatory agencies in the Department of Transportation have done so. For
    example, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration measures the
    percentage of truck companies that improve their performance in a
    follow-up inspection.

    ^17FRA headquarters and regional officials also analyze defect data in
    each inspection discipline to identify emerging issues and plan inspection
    activity.

    FRA Has Made Changes in Response to Evaluations but Has Not Evaluated Its
    Enforcement Approach

    By examining a broader range of information than is feasible to monitor on
    an ongoing basis through performance measures, evaluation studies can
    explore the benefits of a program as well as ways to improve program
    performance. They can also be used to develop or improve agencies'
    measures of program performance and help ensure agencies' accountability
    for program results. Although FRA has modified several aspects of its
    safety oversight in response to external and internal evaluations, it has
    not evaluated the extent to which its enforcement is achieving desired
    results.

    Under FRA's current "focused enforcement" policy, developed in the
    mid-1990s, inspectors cite a small percentage of identified defects (about
    3 percent in 2005) as violations that they recommend for enforcement
    action, generally civil penalties. While this policy relies to a great
    extent on cooperation with railroads to achieve compliance and is intended
    to focus FRA's enforcement efforts on those instances of noncompliance
    that pose the greatest safety hazards, it is not clear whether the number
    of civil penalties issued, or their amounts, are having the desired effect
    of improving compliance. Without an evaluation of its enforcement program,
    FRA is missing an opportunity to obtain valuable information on the
    performance of this program and on any need for adjustments to improve
    this performance.

    In the report we issued last week, we recommended that FRA (1) develop and
    implement measures of the direct results of its inspection and enforcement
    programs and (2) evaluate the agency's enforcement program to provide
    further information on its results, the need for additional data to
    measure and assess these results, and the need for any changes in this
    program to improve performance. FRA did not express a view on these
    recommendations when it commented on our draft report. As part of our
    normal recommendation follow-up activity, we will work toward FRA's
    adoption of our recommendations.

    Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
    to respond to any questions that you or other Members of the Subcommittee
    might have.

    GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgement

    For further information on this statement, please contact Katherine
    Siggerud at (202) 512-2834 or siggerudk@gao.gov . Individuals making
    key contributions to this testimony were Judy Guilliams-Tapia, Bonnie
    Pignatiello Leer, and James Ratzenberger.

    (542107)

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    www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-390T .

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    Highlights of [23]GAO-07-390T , a testimony before the Subcommittee on
    Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, Committee on Transportation
    and Infrastructure, House of Representatives

    January 30, 2007

    RAIL SAFETY

    The Federal Railroad Administration Is Better Targeting Its Oversight, but
    Needs to Assess the Impact of Its Efforts

    Although the overall safety record of the railroad industry, as measured
    by the number of train accidents per million miles traveled, has improved
    markedly since 1980, there has been little or no overall improvement over
    the past decade. Serious accidents resulting in injuries and deaths
    continue to occur, such as one in Graniteville, South Carolina, that
    resulted in 9 deaths and 292 injuries. The Federal Railroad Administration
    (FRA) develops safety standards and inspects and enforces railroads'
    compliance with these standards.

    On January 26, 2007, GAO reported on FRA's overall safety oversight
    strategy. (See GAO-07-149.) The report discussed how FRA (1) focuses its
    efforts on the highest priority risks related to train accidents in
    planning its oversight, (2) identifies safety problems on railroad systems
    in carrying out its oversight, and (3) assesses the impact of its
    oversight efforts on safety. GAO recommended that FRA (1) put into place
    measures of the results of its inspection and enforcement programs and (2)
    evaluate its enforcement program. In reviewing a draft of that report, the
    Department of Transportation did not provide overall views on its contents
    or its recommendations.

    The statement is based on GAO's recent report.

    In planning its safety oversight, FRA is focusing its efforts on the
    highest priority risks related to train accidents through initiatives
    aimed at addressing their main causes--human behaviors and defective
    track--as well as through improvements in its inspection planning
    approach. FRA's May 2005 National Rail Safety Action Plan, the agency's
    overall strategy for targeting its oversight at the greatest risks,
    provides a reasonable framework for guiding these efforts. FRA's
    initiatives to address the most common causes of accidents are promising,
    although the success of many of themwill depend on voluntary actions by
    the railroads. In addition, under the action plan, FRA has adopted a new
    inspection planning approach in which inspectors focus their efforts on
    locations that data-driven models indicate are most likely to have safety
    problems.

    In carrying out its safety oversight, FRA identifies a range of safety
    problems on railroad systems mainly by determining whether operating
    practices, track, and equipment are in compliance with minimum safety
    standards. However, FRA is able to inspect only about 0.2 percent of
    railroads' operations each year, and its inspections do not examine how
    railroads are managing safety risks throughout their systems that could
    lead to accidents. Such an approach, as a supplement to traditional
    compliance inspections, is used in the oversight of U.S. commuter
    railroads and pipelines and of Canadian railroads. GAO did not recommend
    that FRA adopt this approach because the agency's various initiatives to
    reduce the train accident rate have not yet had time to demonstrate their
    effects on safety.

    FRA uses a range of goals and measures to assess the impact of its
    oversight, such as (1) goals to target its inspection and enforcement
    programs at reducing various types of railroad accidents and (2) related
    measures, such as rates of track-caused accidents, to monitor its
    progress. However, FRA's ability to make informed decisions about these
    programs is limited because it lacks measures of their direct results,
    such as the correction of identified safety problems. Furthermore, FRA has
    not evaluated the effectiveness of its enforcement program.

    Track Inspector Examining Rail to Assess Its Safety Compliance

    References

    Visible links
      13. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-149
      14. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-946
      23. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-390T
    *** End of document. ***