The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 is a
United States federal law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as va ...
, enacted by
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
to improve
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
safety. Among its provisions, the most notable was the mandate requiring
positive train control
Positive train control (PTC) is a family of automatic train protection systems deployed in the United States. Most of the United States' national rail network mileage has a form of PTC. These systems are generally designed to check that trains a ...
(PTC) technology to be installed on most of the US railroad network by 2015. This was spurred by the
2008 Chatsworth train collision the month prior to passage of the act. After two delays, the technology was operational on all required railroads by the end of 2020.
Background
Starting in 1990, the
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...
(NTSB) counted PTC among its "Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements."
[National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Washington, DC (2010)]
"Modifications to NTSB Most Wanted List; List of Transportation Safety Improvements after September 1990."
/ref> At the time, the vast majority of rail lines relied on the human crew for complying with all safety rules, and a significant fraction of accidents were attributable to human error.
In September 2008, Congress considered a new rail safety law that set a deadline of 2015 for implementation of PTC technology across most of the U.S. rail network. The bill, ushered through the legislative process by the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, was developed in response to the collision
In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...
of a Metrolink passenger train
A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...
and a Union Pacific freight train
Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) haul ...
September 12, 2008, in California, which resulted in the deaths of 25 and injuries to more than 135 passengers.
As the bill neared final passage by Congress, the Association of American Railroads
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) is an industry trade group representing primarily the major freight Rail transport, railroads of North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States). Amtrak and some regional Commuter rail in North Am ...
(AAR) issued a statement in support of the bill. President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
signed the 315-page Rail Safety Improvement Act into law on October 16, 2008.
Provisions of the law
Among its provisions, the law provides funding to help pay for the development of PTC technology, limits the number of hours freight rail crews can work each month, and requires the Department of Transportation to determine work hour limits for passenger train crews.
Implementation
To implement the law, the Federal Railroad Administration
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail saf ...
(FRA) published final regulations for PTC systems on January 15, 2010.
In December 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...
(GAO) reported that Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
and the major Class I railroad
In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$ ...
s had taken steps to install PTC systems under the law, but that the work may not be complete by the 2015 deadline. The railroads and their suppliers were continuing to develop software to test various system components, which could delay equipment installation. GAO also suggested that publicly funded commuter railroads
Commuter rail services in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica provide common carrier passenger transportation along railway tracks, with scheduled service on fixed routes on a non-reservation basis, primarily for sho ...
will have difficulty in obtaining funds to pay for their system components.Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
signed the bill on October 29, 2015. Only four railroads met the December 2018 deadline; the other 37 got extensions to December 2020, which was allowed under the law for railroads that demonstrated implementation progress. On December 29, 2020, it was reported that the safeguards had been installed on all required railroads, two days ahead of the deadline.
See also
*Dark territory
Dark territory is a term used in the North American railroad industry to describe a section of running track not controlled by signals. Train movements in dark territory were previously handled by timetable and train order operation, but since t ...
(unsignalled sections of track)
*North American railway signalling
Standards for North American railroad signaling in the United States are issued by the Association of American Railroads (AAR), which is a trade association of the railroads of Canada, the US, and Mexico. Their system is loosely based on practices ...
*Transportation safety in the United States
Transportation safety in the United States encompasses safety of transportation in the United States, including automobile crashes, airplane crashes, rail crashes, and other mass transit incidents, although the most fatalities are generated ...
* Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads
References
{{Reflist
Railway safety
United States railroad regulation
United States federal transportation legislation
Acts of the 110th United States Congress
2008 in rail transport