Segment 4 Of 4 Previous Hearing Segment(3)
SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
Page 408 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
PLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is a portion of the official hearing record of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Additional material pertinent to this transcript may be found on the web site of the Committee at [http://www.house.gov/transportation]. Complete hearing records are available for review at the Committee offices and also may be purchased at the U.S. Government Printing Office.
RAIL SAFETY OVERSIGHT: HIGH TECHNOLOGY TRAIN CONTROL DEVICES
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1996
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Railroads,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to recess, at 2:23 p.m. in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Susan V. Molinari (chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads) presiding.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you and good afternoon. I want to welcome all of our participating members and witnesses to another rail safety oversight hearing.
As you know, and certainly our panel is well aware, the Railroad Subcommittee of the Transportation Committee has held two earlier hearings on other aspects of rail safety, brought on and hurried up by the rash of tragic accidents that have occurred in this Nation over the last few months, but particularly in February, which brought to all of our attention the concerns that we need to focus as a Nation on what we can do to improve and coordinate rail safety. We've had hearings on the human factor and on other technical aspects on rail safety.
Page 409 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Today, in conjunction with our colleagues of the Science Committee's Technology Subcommittee, we're focusing specifically on the potential of advanced train control systems. I'm particularly pleased and honored that Chairman Connie Morella of the Technology Subcommittee has agreed to co-chair this very important hearing.
This hearing is an excellent example of the cooperation and efficiency that's possible when various committees of the House work together on issues of common interest and concern, and I commend Chairwoman Morella for her interests and her efforts in preparing us all for this hearing.
We have a wide range of interesting and highly qualified witnesses to hear from today, so I will be extremely brief. I just want to note that in rail safety, as in other areas of transportation, and in industry, generally, new technologies are opening up almost every day, new possibilities not thought feasible even a few years ago.
A good example of this is the pervasiveness of computers in our work and everyday lives. In a few years, I think if you show people under the age of 25, he or she probably won't recognize what a typewriter is.
In rail transportation there are also great strides being made in the areas of operations, management, and control of train movements.
We hope to hear today from people who are familiar with the state-of-the-art of relevant technology who can tell us the potential that it holds for rail safety and who perhaps can show us how it may be best able to be used to help improve rail safety in the future.
Page 410 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Thank you. I'd like now to yield to Chairwoman Morella.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. I want to thank the chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Congresswoman Molinari, my good friend and colleague from New York, for sharing jurisdiction over this very important issue. I know that her subcommittee has, as she mentioned, already had two hearings on the subject. In this one today we're going to be looking at technology.
The topic of transportation safety technology is one of great interest, not just to both of our subcommittees, but also to our Nation and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who board a train every day.
Statistics have shown that railroads are still one of the safest forms of transportation available today, and that the number of accidents and injuries appears to be in decline. Over the past 14 years, the number of train accidents has declined over 50 percent, and the number of incidents resulting in death or injury to passengers and employees at grade crossings has declined steadily over the past decade.
This decline can be attributed to the combination of greater train safety awareness and the use of technology to improve the detection and elimination of unsafe conditions.
The future of this safety record, however, has been recently called into serious question, with a series of rail tragedies over the past few months, most notably, the Silver Spring accident of a Maryland commuter train and the AMTRAK Capital Limited, and a commuter train crash in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Page 411 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
These recent accidents have prompted us to question the adequacy of rail safety policies. Together, the Silver Spring and Secaucus accidents killed 14 people, injured 188, and has shaken the public confidence of our rail passengers.
Having visited the Silver Spring site within hours of the crash, I saw first-hand the horrifying details of how 11 people aboard MARC train 281 died. On that snowy February evening, the mangled commuter train erupted into a furnace, trapping some of its passengers and causing their deaths by fire and smoke. It was gruesome and tragic, and yet perhaps avoidable.
It's very troubling for me to continue hearing disturbing allegations that, with our current technological advances in train safety, and with the technology research now underway, that the Silver Spring accident might not have occurred, and the 11 lives lost could have been spared.
While some of these answers must ultimately await the findings of the current National Transportation Safety Board investigation, there are technology and equipment issues of debate within the industry that seem to haunt every train wreck, which we need to discuss today.
I'm looking forward to hearing from our distinguished panel of witnesses representing the industry, labor, and government; about the effectiveness of current research and development to prevent train accidents, focusing on the practicality and availability of advanced train control and other collision avoidance systems; and interested in hearing their views about the Silver Spring crash.
Page 412 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
While I do not dispute the fact that annual rail accidents are declining, it seems clear to me, however, that a safe transportation system of any kind requires more than just a simple statistical narration of probability statistics.
We, as government regulators and industry officials, must do all we can to ensure public confidence, to the extent practicable, by effectively utilizing our available rail safety technologies and encouraging the development of new advanced technologies. We must do this to protect the tens of millions of train riders annually, but also in the future we will never have to undergo the nagging self doubts about whether we could have averted the catastrophic loss of life when two trains collide, such as in Silver Spring or in Secaucus.
I thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to make an opening statement.
Ms. MOLINARI. I thank the gentlewoman from Maryland.
I'd now like to recognize the gentleman from California, the ranking minority Member on the full committee, Mr. Brown.
Mr. BROWN. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let me compliment you for arranging this very important hearing, particularly in connection with Congresswoman Morella who, in her role as chairman of the Technology Subcommittee, has had a great deal of interest and responsibility for many of those new technologies that you referred to in your opening remarks.
Page 413 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
I have a particular interest in this problem, not only because of my interest in advanced technology, but because two of the most serious train wrecks in the country in recent years have occurred in the San Bernadino area of California, which I represent. Both of these could have been eliminated or prevented by some of the technologies that we have available today, and I want to see what progress is being made in this kind of a situation.
Of course, I think the next major step in controlling railroad accidents and in generally managing railroads, in general, is through the use of advanced technology such as global positioning systems, which I think can be made available at cost, which would be feasible for railroads. They use them for rental cars; I don't see why we can't use them for railroads. And if that's the case, we could, I think, take a large step toward avoiding any undue proximity situations which could lead to accidents.
So I thank you for exploring this subject in this hearing this afternoon.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
I'd now like to recognize Mr. Petri. We want to thank him for being here. He is not a member of this subcommittee. I presume and I'm assured that he's here, because he did have a tragic accident in his District also, and we welcome his participation.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Kim?
Mr. KIM. I have no opening statement, Madam Chair.
Page 414 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you.
Mr. Franks from New Jersey.
Mr. FRANKS. Madam Chair, I just want to commend you and Mrs. Morella for convening this hearing today. Those of us who hail from New Jersey have been witness to one of these fatal crashes, and we're all interested in upgrading rail safety to the greatest possible extent.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you very much, Mr. Franks.
[Mrs. Johnson's prepared statement follows:]
[Insert here.]
Ms. MOLINARI. We now have our first panel of witnesses. We don't have red lights here, but we do have this——
[Laughter.]
Ms. MOLINARI. So you're all just going to have to trust me when I say time is up, and I have verification here, and we'll try to be fair on this.
Our first panel, we have with us—and we thank both on this panel of witnesses, in particular, because they have been at the two hearings that we've had, and have really spent a significant portion of time exploring the area of rail safety with our committee.
Page 415 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Our first witness is going to be the Honorable Jolene Molitoris, who is, of course, the administrator of the Federal Rail Administration. She is accompanied by the Honorable Donald Itzkoff, deputy administrator, and Mr. Steven Ditmeyer, director of office of research and development.
We are also joined by Mr. James Arena, director of the office of surface transportation safety of the National Transportation Safety Board, and he is accompanied by Mr. Edward Dobranetski, chief, major railroad investigations, and Mr. Barry Sweedler, Director, Office of Safety Recommendations.
I've also been advised that the chairman, Mr. Hall, would be here with us. He has been at our last two meetings, and is ill at this point in time, so we do thank him for sending such capable representatives on his behalf.
Ms. Molitoris.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOLENE M. MOLITORIS, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY HON. DONALD ITZKOFF, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, AND STEVEN DITMEYER, DIRECTOR OF OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT; AND JAMES ARENA, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SURFACE TRANSPORTATION SAFETY, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, ACCOMPANIED BY EDWARD DOBRANETSKI, CHIEF, MAJOR RAILROAD INVESTIGATIONS, AND BARRY SWEEDLER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SAFETY RECOMMENDATIONS
Ms. MOLITORIS. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman and co-chair, Congresswoman Morella.
Page 416 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
This is our third in a series of hearings, and we are very grateful at the interest of the Chairs and the committee members in sharing time to explore the important issues of rail safety.
As I've reviewed, Madam Chairwomen, the voluminous testimony of the past two hearings with this subcommittee, I am aware that there is so much testimony about 15 years ago this and 20 years ago and 12 years ago that I have become convinced that perhaps it would be worth a few minutes to delineate the FRA of today as it compares to the FRA of the past and then go into the issues of advanced train control systems.
When I came to the FRA upon being confirmed by the Senate on August 5th of 1993, I immediately began extensive listening sessions and round tables with our constituents and analyzed FRA and everything affecting its safety mission—its programs, its people, its results.
I concluded that I did not have the luxury of focusing on one or two specific issues during my tenure, but that, along with all the people of FRA, I would have to be about the business of pursuing the daunting task of complete and fundamental change in all areas of our mission.
I'm proud of the work of the people of FRA and what they have done to change things at FRA.
Let me just mention a few of the unique achievements that they have wrought.
Page 417 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
With regard to rulemaking, we faced a huge rulemaking agenda. With success on our first negotiated rulemaking, roadway worker, we realized that with a Railway Safety Advisory Committee we could do many rulemakings simultaneously. The first meeting of the Railway Safety Advisory Committee will occur next Monday and Tuesday, and we are very encouraged by determination to move forward swiftly and deliberately.
Second, we have, since our last hearing, Madam Chairwomen, new high-speed train set announcements which, in fact, are the safest ever to be constructed in the world, and that is due to the work of the people at FRA who worked closely with AMTRAK on the safety specifications.
Another difference that is so important is the consistent involvement of labor in all the safety assurance and compliance program activities which search for system-wide solutions to leveraged safety.
Secretary Pena, in 1994, made a 180-degree change from previous FRA positions and committed to pursue rail equipment safety standards.
Our R&D, instead of being funded on an ongoing basis, is now measured by annual performance measures for each project.
Our NTSB rate of acceptance has gone up to 85 percent between 1993 and 1995, a vast improvement over the past.
Page 418 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
And, finally, the greatest area of rail death, grade crossing safety, Secretary Pena has made that a national safety priority.
But nowhere in the last 3 years at FRA is the change more evident than in the subject you have chosen for today, advanced train control systems.
As you know, in 1994 the FRA produced our report on positive train control, not merely as a book of facts to respond to a Congressional mandate, but incorporating, at my insistence, a time line and an action plan that we are keeping to and implementing today.
To move advanced train control systems forward, I must candidly say that I laid down a marker with the industry directly, challenging the CEOs of class one railroads to help with advanced train control developments, because FRA, one way or the other, was moving forward.
The railroads responded positively to my challenge, and you know by now of the 843-mile test bed for positive train control being laid in Washington and Oregon by BNSF and UP.
I continue to believe that we will push this technology further and faster with a partnership approach. Our 1994 report emphasized that FRA would move PTC technology forward by combining public and private sector efforts to foster deployment of contemporary PTC systems on high-risk rail corridors by the year 2000. I will submit this report for the record.
This afternoon you will hear much about how positive train control works, and my prepared submission goes into those technicalities, and you'll hear it from many, so I won't take time to repeat it, but let me touch on the 1994 benefit/cost analysis.
Page 419 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
In preparing that report, the American Association of Railroads, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, and the FRA jointly studied the costs and benefits of accident prevention due to PTC. Based on this team's agreed-upon numbers, FRA estimated that implementation of this technology nationwide would save approximately $30 million annually from avoided accidents. In addition, we identified significant potential business benefits to railroads.
FRA also looked at costs in this report. We found that the total investment required to install PTC universally would be between $860 million and $1.1 billion, or about 20 percent of 1 year's capital investment in the railroad industry.
As a result, we concluded that a requirement for universal PTC would not be justified on accident avoidance, alone. Nevertheless, we determined that implementing PTC on major corridors is an important safety objective, because certain railroad lines carrying heavy passenger or hazardous materials may experience greater risk with respect to frequency and severity of accidents.
Accordingly, FRA committed to a comprehensive plan of action to evaluate implementation and identify those corridors. We've aggressively pursued that schedule.
For example, FRA is partnering with the Federal Highway Administration to ensure that PTC issues are included in the intelligent highway systems initiative, particularly at grade crossings. We're teaming with the Coast Guard and the Department of Defense to promote integration of Defense technologies into PTC and to broaden coverage of differential global positioning systems for PTC. And we're working with the AAR to ensure the effectiveness of their open architecture system for PTC.
Page 420 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
We are also sponsoring a key piece of work at the Volpe Transportation Center. They are now developing a corridor risk model, which should be ready by August, and at that time we can use that model to evaluate corridors around the country to come up with a series of high-risk corridors.
Most significantly, we are investing in demonstrations in three locations—the Pacific northwest, Chicago/St. Louis, and Chicago/Detroit. This has been an Administration commitment of over $30 million between fiscal year 1995 and 1997.
All of these initiatives build toward FRA's commitment to consider standards and regulations regarding PTC on identified categories of rail lines in the United States where passenger and freight traffic is the greatest.
I expect the data we will derive from our risk analysis, along with all the information gained from the test bed deployments to date, will guide us in consultation with our rail, labor, management, and supplier partners in these important safety decisions.
Finally, Madam Chairwoman, one core question is asked consistently: is PTC ready? I believe that the technological components primarily are available today. GPS receivers, computer systems, digital radio technologies, they've all gotten more sophisticated and lower in cost. PTC has even demonstrated in pilot form, through the ARES project and through those pilots of ours, the opportunity to validate the potential of this technology.
At the same time, it must be said that widespread implementation in revenue service, under the demanding operating conditions of the Nation's railroads, requires a very high degree of confidence in system integrity and reliability. Key technological issues which remain to be addressed include: GPS, differential GPS accuracy, availability and capability of radio frequencies, software verification and validation, and, most important, inter-operability.
Page 421 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Madam Chairwoman, I want to assure you that the Federal Railroad Administration is committed, as it has been since the beginning of my tenure, to supporting this process to the fullest extent of our resources and mandate. In addition, we'll continue to carry out our efforts with the railroads, the suppliers, and rail labor to develop other technologies dealing with equipment, track, and human factors that could also improve the safety of our railroads. These related research and development activities are critically important to our mission.
Excerpts from the FRA budget justification for 1997, for proposed railroad research and development programs which highlight the extent of our commitment, are appended to my testimony.
I thank you for the opportunity for presenting this information today and for the opportunity to answer any questions that you or the committee may have.
Thank you.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you, Administrator.
Mr. Arena.
Mr. ARENA. Madam Chairwomen, good afternoon.
The National Transportation Safety Board appreciates the opportunity to appear before your subcommittees at this time to discuss high-technology train control devices and their role in railroad safety.
Page 422 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
My name is James Arena. I am the director of the Board's Office of Surface Transportation Safety. Accompanying me is Mr. Barry Sweedler, to my right, director of the Office of Safety Recommendations, and Mr. Edward Dobranetski, chief, Major Railroad Investigations.
Chairman Jim Hall asked that I apologize for his not being able to attend today this hearing. He is home with a bad case of the flu. Mr. Robert Lauby, chief of the Board's railroad division, is also out sick.
This is the third in a series of hearings the subcommittee has sponsored in response to the recent tragic railroad accidents that have taken 19 lives since the beginning of the year. We have submitted testimony for the record that outlines the position on this most important subject. I would like to begin, however, with an overview of the Safety Board's views regarding rail safety, as discussed in the previous hearings, and provide the subcommittee with a summary of needed action.
In the past 3 months, there has been an awakening for the American people regarding rail safety. Newspapers, magazine articles, and news shows have all capitalized on this new awareness by displaying headlines asking the question, ''Are our Nation's Railroads Safe?'' The answer to this question is both yes and no.
The Safety Board feels that our Nation's railroads are safe, but they can always be made safer, and those of us in this room have an opportunity, and I believe the public mandate, to improve rail safety today.
Page 423 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
This afternoon I would like to discuss three areas where immediate action should be taken to improve the safety of our Nation's railroads.
The first area deals with the issue of fatigue. The appropriateness of the 1907 Hours of Service Act for modern work schedules has been debated endlessly over the past 90 years. Even the serious discussions which are currently taking place between railroad labor, railroad management, and the FRA have not resulted in any concrete suggestions or actions on how to modify the act.
The FRA is currently authorized by Congress to provide exemptions to the hours of service requirements for the purpose of fatigue studies and pilot projects. Still, there has been very little participation by the railroad industry, and only one request for exemption has been made.
The Safety Board believes that legislation giving the Federal Railroad Administration authority to regulate the hours of service requirements should be enacted promptly. As part of that legislation, the FRA should be tasked to complete rulemaking as quickly as possible to develop scientifically based hours of service regulations that provide train crews with the opportunity for adequate rest, reasonable limits on duty time, and appropriate advanced notice that they will be called to duty.
The second area where action is needed is the backlog of regulatory action, including 39 rulemaking activities that are in various stages of completion at FRA. The Safety Board has testified numerous times that, in the accidents we investigate, we are identifying the same safety problems over and over and over again.
Page 424 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Many of these accidents could have been prevented if regulations such as positive train separation had been in place and enforced.
The Safety Board believes that action must be taken to handle the regulatory backlog that currently exists at the Federal Railroad Administration.
The third and last action area involves today's subject, advanced train control. The Safety Board is on record as an advocate of advanced train control systems that will provide positive train separation. If this type of technology were in place, we'd probably not be mourning the 11 people killed in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the three people killed in Secaucus, New Jersey. What better way can we honor the memory of those who died than for FRA to promulgate standards that will provide for positive separation of all trains.
The development activities and pilot projects that are underway are certainly worthwhile, but what is really needed is an industry commitment spurred by the FRA to actively install positive train separation and for a firm time table to do so.
The three actions mentioned would not prevent every accident, but the Board believes they would have made a difference and, if acted upon, will make a difference in the future.
Before closing, there is one more issue I would like to discuss before my time expires, and that issue is the railroad radio spectrum. Railroad radio communication and advanced train control systems rely on radio frequencies. As you are aware, the FCC is considering consolidating or reforming the radio frequencies used by the railroads with those of other radio users. This poses a treat to safety, because the railroads would no longer have exclusive access to radio frequencies.
Page 425 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Reforming of radio frequencies will allow outside users to use adjacent radio frequencies to railroad operations, and in some cases share frequencies with railroad operations.
The Safety Board is concerned that reforming of frequencies may cause interference with and otherwise negatively impact the reliability and safety of rail communications, which are vital for safe train operations.
The Safety Board is also concerned that auctioning of the frequencies not currently in use by the railroad may cause long-term problems.
While we understand and appreciate the revenue implications of the auctioning of radio frequencies, auctioning has the potential to deny the railroads future access to frequencies needed for transportation safety, and we should proceed in this area with care.
The Safety Board appreciates the opportunity the subcommittee has given us today to discuss important railroad safety issues. We can only hope these tragic accidents will spur the Federal Railroad Administration and the industry to rededicate themselves to make a lasting difference in rail safety in this country.
That completes my comments, and I will be happy to respond to any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Page 426 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you very much, Mr. Arena.
We've also been joined by Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas. We want the thank you very much for being here, and for the ranking Member on the Transportation Subcommittee on Rail, Mr. Wise, from West Virginia.
Let me just start off with a few questions. If I may, Ms. Molitoris, let me skip—let me do what everybody did to me at my first hearing, and let's not stay on the subject, and ask you if you would, again, see if we have any updates relative to the Clinton Administration's position on changing the—modifying the act on fatigue.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Are you talking about the Hours of Service Act?
Ms. MOLINARI. Yes.
Ms. MOLITORIS. As I testified last time, we have several areas of research active at this time, one in Chicago at IITRI and one at the Volpe Transportation Center, which, as I testified last time, will be finished in—we should have results from Chicago by the beginning of next month, and Volpe work should be done in a few months, I think. I don't know the final date on that. But we will base our recommendation to the Administration on this issue on that work.
Ms. MOLINARI. Now, what if we or Senator Lautenberg moves either piece of legislation, his obviously drafted already in the Senate, and we're interested in doing something like that in the House. Obviously, that's probably going to come up a little bit earlier than the time line that you've just outlined. Is it possible that you could put that on a faster time line for us?
Page 427 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Well, we will give you everything we have at the time.
Ms. MOLINARI. OK.
Ms. MOLITORIS. And we will bring that forward.
Ms. MOLINARI. OK. I appreciate that. And I also would appreciate—I think it would be very helpful, since we are changing the way business is done and fatigue is such a big issue, to see if you could influence the Clinton Administration to take a position on that.
Also, with regard to the advanced train control systems, the difference may be in nuance, yet there seems to be a difference between what NTSB and what FRA estimates is the practicability of implementing that technology at this point in time.
At the end of your testimony, Administrator, you mentioned that there are—you listed some things that would prevent us from actually implementing this or going into the field with some actual testing on this, including inter-operability.
Can you talk a little bit about why there seems to be a difference here in terms of why NTSB seems to be suggesting that this is something that we could pursue more aggressively now and why you feel that there are some other factors coming into play?
Page 428 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Well, if I might clarify, I believe what my testimony put forward is that there are issues that need to be validated, and that's why we're investing in these three pilot programs.
I believe, of course, that the roles of NTSB and FRA are quite different.
As Mr. Hall testified at our first hearing—and I will only paraphrase—their responsibility is to focus on the investigations and their statement of safety recommendations. Our role is to take safety through the regulatory process, through the research projects, and the ability to make statements about the validity and the—especially in revenue service, that these technologies must—in the environment in which they must perform.
As I mentioned, inter-operability is a crucial issue. It simply means that whatever system or systems prove themselves to be capable in revenue service of not only preventing collisions, but also providing many of the other management opportunities that we have identified in the report, be able to work across the Nation, since there is so much interface among all our railroad systems, advanced to have train control systems effective only in a small portion of the railroad system would not make a lot of investment sense, in my opinion.
I don't think that there really is a significant difference. I think what the Board is saying is that, in an ideal situation, the investment for advanced train control systems is something we all want.
Our responsibility is to evaluate technology within the context of the rulemaking process, and we are preparing, through research, through analysis, to understand what is the cost of the investment, what are the benefits, and we're doing that in partnership with labor and with the rail industry so that there is consensus on the numbers.
Page 429 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
So I feel that we have been—and our actions prove it—have been aggressively pursuing this in a very responsible, fast, and effective way, and I think the platform that's laid out in the report is very effective.
Perhaps Mr. Ditmeyer, who is director of our research and development office, might want to add a few things.
Mr. DITMEYER. There are some technical issues that we believe still need to be addressed.
First of all, the initial tests that have been done in the past have been on exclusively low-density freight lines. The current demonstrations that we're funding are on corridors of somewhat higher density that also carry conventional passenger trains and higher-speed passenger trains. We want to see how the systems perform under that particular environment.
There are issues regarding GPS accuracy and differential GPS accuracy that need further resolution, and some of those may be alleviated by the recent Presidential announcement about the availability of GPS precision signals to the private sector.
There are issues regarding radio system robustness, completeness, the ability of railroad communication systems to handle the complex message traffic that will be handled under PTC.
Page 430 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
And there are obviously then software issues that we will have to investigate. The PTC systems involve rather complex software. There has been some simple, very site-specific software written in the past. There is going to have to be more generalized software written in the future. That's going to have to be first written, then verified and validated. We've been working on procedures for that, and we're preparing ourselves.
Those are the main technological issues.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you. Mr. Arena, you seem to suggest that the—I think your exact words were that the FRA could be beginning to promulgate standards already, so could you, I guess, just react to what FRA is just saying right now?
Mr. ARENA. The Safety Board certainly concurs that the test bed in the northwest has been testing individual components for advanced train control systems, but we continue to believe that the cost/benefit analysis is too restricted and it should be expanded to include business benefits.
Also, the Safety Board feels that, once the Burlington Northern Santa Fe/Union Pacific project has verified that the technology works in a congested environment, the prioritization of future installations should be based on a risk analysis of traffic mix.
A good candidate for prioritization may be the Silver Spring area, where the collision occurred in February. CSXT's signal system had been upgraded to accommodate bidirectional operation of trains on either of the two tracks that allow increased operation of CSXT freight and commuter trains.
Page 431 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
At the time of the Silver Spring accident, freight trains and AMTRAK inter-city passenger trains and MARC commuter trains were operating through the accident area.
Just today or yesterday it was announced that CSXT has denied the operation of extra MARC trains to the Baltimore/Camden Yards based on its capacity to handle increased traffic. In addition to MARC, VRE and AMTRAK also operate on these busy CSXT freight corridors.
It appears that CSXT's capacity to absorb additional commuter trains has reached limits which prohibit further expansion without negative impacts.
PTS would be costly and resources need to be prioritized to these areas to safely allow for increased commuter, passenger, and freight train corridor utilization, and Mr. Sweedler can give us some more information on the Board's history with it.
Mr. SWEEDLER. We certainly concur with the Administrator that in the last few years there certainly has been a change in direction on PTS.
It is noted, and I'm sure you're well aware, that PTS is on our ''most wanted'' list, and has been from the beginning when we started the ''most wanted'' list. But it's also interesting to note that those recommendations are held in the acceptable classification, so we are satisfied that progress is being made.
But one of the main things that we're looking for is a commitment to go forward with this system and for a time table. When will we do it?
Page 432 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
At this point all of this work is fine, but the industry has still not made a commitment to do this, whether it's in the year 2000 or the year 2005. There is still no commitment. That is one of the things that we will keep working toward.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Madam Chair, could I just mention about commitment, because I think that's a very important element.
I think one of the ways you measure commitment is by the investment of funds, and in terms of the northwest corridor, the challenge was laid down to the industry, and BNSF and UP stepped up to the plate. They will have invested, I think, by the end of this year, $35 million. We will have invested $750,000. Then there is also an earmark from the last budget, from the 1996 budget, for $5 million.
I think this is a level of commitment that is significant. The investment in the other two corridors also will net good information.
Finally, with regard to the priority corridors, let me be clear: that is the work that's going on at the Volpe Center right now. That is what we committed to in 1994, and the model that will be done in August will be used to analyze not only Silver Spring, but corridors all over the country so that we can get an idea of where this high-density freight and passenger congestion and mix occur, and that would be, I believe, consistent with the priority comment that was just made by NTSB.
Ms. MOLINARI. OK. Thank you. My time is clearly up.
Page 433 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
If I can just ask, Administrator, just for our own edification as we prepare, can you have FRA prepare some paperwork detailing more what exactly is going on at the Volpe Center and submit it for the record so that we can become familiar with what we can anticipate finding in August?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Sure. We'd be very happy to do that.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you.
[The information received follows:]
[Insert here.]
Ms. MOLINARI. I'd also like to recognize Mr. Gutknecht and Ms. McCarthy and thank them for being with us.
Mrs. Morella.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. I think it's very interesting that we have both of you side by side as we discuss positive train control with a little bit of a differing opinion. Maybe you'll be coming together in terms of it being done now, because even though it is expensive, it is going to save lives.
But first of all I'd like to make an announcement that I am disappointed that CSX is not going to allow MARC to have their train go out to Camden Yard for the Orioles. I say that for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of people who depend very much on that MARC train going out there, and, of course, it would be deleterious to the environment, it would be a great expense, etc.
Page 434 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Nevertheless, now back on—although that is an issue that we are talking about, but back on another point that was brought up by Mr. Arena. It pertains, Madam Administrator, to your testimony with regard to some of the projects and demonstrations that you have going.
You mentioned the 843-mile test bed for the PTC implementation and basic corridors. I'm curious about what the time table is. I mean, what are we going to find as a result of the various projects you have going, because there are more than one, and what are the time tables for the completion? And what do you think they're going to lead to? I think this is something that we ar all very interested in hearing with regard to where they're going to go. And also bringing into the picture the concept that Mr. Brown mentioned of the global positioning system as being part of that. How does that work out? Therefore, I leave it up to you for your comments.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Madam Chairwoman, the 843-mile test bed is a very exciting opportunity because it is a heavy freight area, and the train passenger service that is run by AMTRAK in the State of Washington is also on that corridor.
So the opportunity to see these different pieces of technology work together with software that we understand will be prepared by this summer—I believe August is when it will be prepared—the railroads will have this software and technology installed on four locomotives this year. Each of the phases of this software, which is a very complex software, will be phased in on increasing numbers of locomotives.
Page 435 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
I think that what Mr Ditmeyer delineated in his comments about the pieces of the technology and how they work in a congested revenue service area is what we want to see.
We also want to see the other two test beds, because they are a different approach to the problem. They are using an overlay system, for example, from Detroit to Chicago. This is a little different kind of system.
We have identified for each of these test beds that inter-operability must be a quality that they have.
So we are looking for the technology on each corridor, what are the fundamental advantages that we observe from these demonstrations, how are they increasing safety, how do they increase productivity and other issues on the railroad, and how do we see the cost being driven down, because, as I mentioned in my testimony, many of the pieces of this technology are more sophisticated than they were 2 years ago when we did the report, and the costs are going down.
Would you like Mr. Ditmeyer to comment?
Mrs. MORELLA. A time table is what I'm interested in.
Mr. DITMEYER. Madam Chairwoman, on the Pacific northwest project, by next February, February 1997, the railroads expect to have 20 locomotives equipped to operate under PTC control.
Page 436 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
We would expect that experiments would be run and that we, in the Federal Railroad Administration would be participating in that, probably in a year, plus or minus, in order to get results. So some time in 1998 we would expect to have some sense of the performance of that system.
Now, quite frankly, I don't know for sure, and railroads will testify later, but if it's successful the experiment wouldn't end. It would simply be a continuing, ongoing operation.
On our other two projects, one in Illinois, we're funding the implementation of a train control system called ATCS, advanced train control system, according to the AAR's own specifications. They will be letting a contract later this year, second half of 1996, so hardware will not be going in probably until some time in 1997. I would expect we would not be seeing operational results there until late 1998 or 1999.
In the case of Michigan, we're funding a project with Amtrak and Harmon Industries on an overlay system—digital data link overlaid on the existing operations, and tests should be done fairly soon. I would say some time in 1997 we will have a sense of how successfully that system is performing.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Madam Chairwoman, I think it's important to define the pronoun. What is ''it''? I think that's what we're trying to do, define the pronoun. To have the goal line, we have to establish what it is that is appropriate for installation on particular priority corridors—passenger and hazardous materials, for example, or more widespread, depending on what technologies and matching parts and pieces are available to work together.
Page 437 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
I think the definitional stage is what we are involved in here, and so, in terms of making that commitment, we have made a commitment. We made a commitment in the 1994 report, and it says that our safety goal is to have these installations on priority corridors by the year 2000. To me, that's very plain. That's a year. That's a time. That is what we are in very aggressive pursuit of. And that's where I think the work at Volpe is so crucial. I think it will be able to give us all a road map that we don't have right now.
I think the installations will not only identify how the three test beds will work, but also help us with cost/benefit analysis and benefits that will help drive the industry.
I think there is a level of optimism by the railroads involved in the northwest corridor in terms of what they are learning by the work they are doing.
Mrs. MORELLA. My time has expired, Madam Chair. I guess 1998 almost sounds like it could be a commitment year fulfillment.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you.
Mr. Brown?
Mr. BROWN. Thank you very much.
First let me say that I know very little about train systems, so if I ask stupid questions, please forgive me.
Page 438 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
I was a little taken aback by your high cost estimate for the installation of a system like a GPS system for the railroads. It sounded to me like you were going to buy a whole new satellite system or something with that amount of money. You mentioned $800 million to $1.2 billion. Can you describe to me at least the outline of the specifications, what you're buying for that amount of money?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Brown, could I have Mr. Ditmeyer respond to that?
Mr. BROWN. Sure.
Mr. DITMEYER. Mr. Brown, there are three major components of positive train control. One is—and perhaps the key element—the digital data link, the communications network that has to be installed that permits digital communications to take place between trains and control centers and vice versa, and between maintenance-of-way crews on the tracks and control centers. That requires a fair amount of capital investment.
Second comes the equipment on the locomotives. That's basically on-board computers and displays. But also another piece of that is the GPS receiver that receives the signals from the GPS satellites and calculates the position of the vehicle.
The GPS receiver is actually one of the very lower-priced pieces of the whole suite of equipment.
Page 439 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. BROWN. A few hundred dollars apiece is all they cost.
Mr. DITMEYER. At least for civilian pleasure boating and other applications. For a locomotive it might be somewhat higher, but it is simply a fraction of the overall on-board computer that has to do calculations comparing location with the authorities received from the control center.
The final piece is the control center, itself. Software is required, and dispatcher equipment to be able to operate the system.
But, again, GPS is a key part of positive train control, but the good news is, because of Government investments, it's a fairly low-cost piece of the total package.
Mr. BROWN. Well, you have submitted a specific number, so would you be willing to look at that number and describe on the computations as to what it bought, what equipment? I'm very interested in that.
Mr. Ditmeyer, I'm very pleased that you have an office of research and development for railroads, but I don't know much about it, and I wondered if you could give me, for the record, about a one-page description of the nature of the work that's done in that office.
Mr. DITMEYER. Yes, sir.
[The information received follows:]
Page 440 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
[Insert here.]
Mr. BROWN. Let me ask one additional question. Is there any routine way in which we compare the performance of American railroads with European and Japanese railroads, which generally travel at higher speeds, and frequently in more congested areas? Do you have routine ways of comparing safety and performance and other things with these other systems and with the technological differences between the systems?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Brown, we don't have a routine way, and one of the reasons is that the kinds of detailed information and data that we keep are not a one-for-one comparison.
We certainly have good relations. We, in fact, have an agreement, a technical agreement with the Japanese. We're sharing information all the time. We work closely with the German railroads and the French railroads and the Polish railroads on all of their systems and their system development.
We have some general comparisons, but not anywhere—anything as complete and detailed as we have about our own.
Mr. DITMEYER. Both the European and Japanese railways have been heavy passenger railroads for a long time. Consequently, those railroads have made very substantial investments in automatic train control systems. Their signal systems have had significantly more investment than U.S. railroads have made on their signal systems, and they have the feature of automatic on-board enforcement of the signal indication.
Page 441 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The European and Japanese railways are using track circuits and block indications, sometimes with and sometimes without wayside signals, but with cab signal displays and with on-board enforcement. But it reflects a significantly higher investment level than on the U.S. railroads.
Ms. MOLITORIS. And, Mr. Brown, if I might add, it is, I think, significant to note that the Japanese railroads were not privatized until 9 years ago, and even today are only partially privatized, so the majority of the investment, the very heavy investment that Mr. Ditmeyer is talking about, is the investment of the government in these systems.
Mr. BROWN. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
Mr. Kim, before I call on you for questioning, is today your birthday?
Mr. KIM. Yes.
Ms. MOLINARI. Happy birthday, Mr. Kim.
Mr. KIM. I'm getting older, and I'm proud of it.
I was going to ask a nasty question. Maybe I'll change my mind since it's my birthday.
Page 442 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLINARI. Not on your birthday, Mr. Kim.
Mr. KIM. I do have some concern. You mentioned that you're going through a lot of changes and etc. That's good. I'm glad to hear that. But let me put this bluntly: when there is an accident happen, I understand it takes 13 months for NTSB to come up with a report which contains specific findings and recommendations. Is that true, Mr. Arena? It takes 13 months?
Mr. ARENA. There have been instances where the reports have taken 13 months, and there have been instances where information was not available that took a little more than 13 months, but there are a number of examples where it—that's improving.
Mr. KIM. That's an improvement?
Mr. ARENA. The system is improving.
Mr. KIM. From there, then FRA takes over. You review the report and then come back with some kind of a rulemaking. It takes 3 to 5 years. Is that true?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Kim, to clarify, when the NTSB is completed and sends us a report and recommendations, the recommendations really can be on a wide spectrum of issues. Not all of them require rulemaking.
As I said, we have been really focused on improving our response to the NTSB, and we are now at 85 percent positive response.
Page 443 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. KIM. All right. Let me interrupt just 1 second. During this time I'm going to talk about the specific example of Cajon Pass, where an identical accident happened twice within 13 months—identical. Now, if we had a rulemaking or report came out earlier, this could have been prevented.
Now, what I'm trying to tell you is, back in July 1994 you made a report, which we have a copy of, and stated that you are conducting a rulemaking to revise FRA's radio communication procedure. As of today, I don't see any rulemaking.
Ms. MOLITORIS. That's correct.
Mr. KIM. Now we are about to have this fancy automatic train control system. You stated that this fancy digital transmission of track movement in lieu of radio communications is going to be available some time—you said years away. That bothers me, ''years away.'' I have to agree with Mr. Sweedler. Years away? What do you mean? Five years? Ten years? I think we need some bottom line.
Like my colleague, Mrs. Morella, said, where is the time table here?
Now, according to a report or testimony by Rockwell International, they said that the PTS system can be done within 15 months. Why can't you give us some kind of time table—2 years, 5 years, 10 years—like Rockwell International did?
I'm having trouble with this thing. You keep saying, ''We're going to do this, we're going to do that. Since Mr Pena took over things have changed 180 degrees.'' I'll tell you, the last 6 months we've had more train accidents than the last 5 years combined together. So I appreciate changing 180 degrees but, for heaven's sake, I want to know what time table we're looking at. Can you tell me some idea? It's going to be done by the year 2000? Tell us something.
Page 444 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Kim, may I repeat what I have said today, and that is that the report in 1994 did have a time table. It says very clearly that our goal was to have the installation of these advanced train control systems on priority corridors by the year 2000. It's very clear. That is a time table.
Mr. KIM. Mr. Sweedler, is that the way you understood it?
Mr. SWEEDLER. I think we did. I think that is a goal that has been mentioned by the administrator. But we still are hoping that that works. We don't have much information yet about which corridors.
Obviously, it all can't be done at once, but our ultimate goal is to have it on all main line tracks.
Mr. KIM. Correct.
Mr. SWEEDLER. It may take 20 years. It may take more than that. But I think we'd like to see something laid out. I think that it certainly is a very good plan to move toward this 2000 for certain corridors. That would certainly be a commitment.
Mr. KIM. When would this list be available on which corridors we're targeting? Is that the year 2000?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Kim, may I repeat, the work at the Volpe Transportation Center is the risk assessment and priority corridor analysis that we committed to do in 1994. That will be complete by the end of this year. The analytic model, which will be used to analyze the corridors, will be complete in August.
Page 445 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. KIM. The priority will be completed end of this year?
Ms. MOLITORIS. The priority corridors identification.
Mr. KIM. All right. Well, we have something. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. MOLINARI. Mr Wise?
Mr. WISE. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Continuing somewhat on the question of technology and sort of the technological development, if it's going to take several years for satellite-based positive train separation systems to be developed, but already there are track-based cab signaling and automatic train control systems available, I guess my question is—the old bird in the hand worth two in the bush—is it worth waiting for PTS when it would seem as though there could be similar gains with existing off-the-shelf technology, or is that a fair analysis? Madam Administrator?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Wise, I think it is a good question. There are a couple of good items I could put forward for your consideration.
First of all, the existing systems that you are talking about were estimated, if those particular systems were going to be installed across the country, to be a cost of about $3 billion.
Page 446 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
One of the elements of the new system that is very encouraging is the reduction in cost and the fact that these advanced train control systems have a much wider variety of application, which is very good on the safety side, and it also could be very good in the productivity side.
We identified those in our report—some of those elements.
So we believe that there is an encouraging, optimistic opportunity here to really take advantage of this on these priority corridors.
I think there will have to be some decisionmaking by railroads. I think, if you look at other transportation systems, take our highway system, the kinds of technology at intersections, even at grade crossings, we have, in some senses, automatic lights, gates, and bells where there is high traffic density, and in a more rural area we may only have lights or a sign.
So there is this element of risk and traffic and congestion that all goes into the decisionmaking about where you put these investments, since you can't do all of them immediately.
And, Mr Ditmeyer, is there any other comment you want to make?
Mr. DITMEYER. I think you summed it up very well that, again, the situation is that the traditional systems, the automatic train control systems, cost more to implement and have the potential for providing less downstream efficiency and operational benefits.
Page 447 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. I don't know where I come on this. I'm trying to learn. But there is also in that indefinite area of when is it that PTS comes on so that it is off the shelf as much as these are, and when does somebody make that initial investment?
Does NTSB have any thoughts on this?
Mr. SWEEDLER. This is a rather interesting question that you've raised, sir. Our original recommendations that went back a number of years talked about positive train separation using the old technology. In the middle 1980's, the FRA and the industry basically convinced us, and we go along with this new concept, that the ATCS, using modern technology, is the way to go, and we have moved away from using some of the older technology.
But when we see, in certain very limited, specific areas, where parts of the old system are still in place, I think we need to consider whether it would be useful to spend some money in the interim to augment a partial system to upgrade it so we do have some positive train separation protection.
That's one of the things that we're looking at as part of our investigation of at least two or three of these collisions.
Mr. WISE. Will you be recommending or is FRA looking at sites where you might want to implement the older technology now as you wait for the newer to come on?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Well, the three test beds that we have are newer technology, but they're different kinds. The one between Detroit and Chicago is an overlay system, that is using the existing signalling technology that's in the track and building on that. That's the Harmon technology that is being developed.
Page 448 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. SWEEDLER. I think what we were talking more about—for example, take the Silver Spring situation or the Secaucus situation. Our understand is that the cars are equipped to handle either cab control or full positive train separation, but the track may not be equipped. Or there may be other cases where the track may be equipped and the cars aren't.
So I'm saying, in those few, specific, high-risk situations, it may be worth making some interim investment until we get to the full PTC or PTS system.
I'm saying that is certainly something that's worth exploring.
Mr. WISE. Let me turn very quickly to a low-tech question. Madam Administrator, your 1994 report on railroad communications and train control committed the FRA to proposing a rule that each lead locomotive be equipped with an operative radio—and I stress ''operative.'' Getting working radios on trains is one of the main reasons that Congress directed, in the 1992 Rail Safety Act, to prepare the report.
The report said that rulemaking would be done in fiscal year 1996. The recent status report on rulemaking you've released says on the radio issue, ''the timing of project initiation to be determined.'' My question would be: what is the status of the rule and when do you expect it to be out?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Wise, we are pleased to tell you that Monday and Tuesday of next week will be the first meeting of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, and at those meetings we will be laying out a framework where we will set up working groups to address many rulemakings at once. The radio rulemaking is on that list.
Page 449 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. I promise not to go into my tirade on working groups, but my question is: this seems to be pretty straightforward. It seems to be fairly common sense that a lead locomotive would have an operative radio. Why would this rule be seemingly cumbersome and difficult to promulgate?
Ms. MOLITORIS. I don't think I'm saying it's cumbersome. In fact, we hope that some of the rules that this committee deals with are not all at the same level of difficulty, because our focus is such that at some point, (I hope a year from now), you'll maybe see some positive elements to the working group setup.
We're going to have deadlines, and we're really looking forward to working with this team to push things out of there.
I think it is fair to say, however, Mr. Wise, that, although there is not a rule about an operating radio, that, in fact, the general practice in reality is that the operating radio is, for the most part, available on every locomotive.
Mr. WISE. But is it true that some railroads—and it's been suggested to me New Jersey Transit being one—do not have radios on their locomotives?
Ms. MOLITORIS. I know that the issue which came out of our emergency order 20, which required the communication availability of radios—and I'd have to check, Mr. Wise, to see if it was New Jersey Transit—but that there was a significant cost for them to purchase that kind of hand-held radio. So it may be true in that case, but may I submit it for the record, please?
Page 450 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. If you would, we'd appreciate it. Thank you.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Thank you.
[The information received follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. WISE. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. MORELLA [assuming Chair]. Thank you, Mr. Wise.
I'd now like to yield time to Ms. McCarthy.
Ms. MCCARTHY. Good afternoon, Madam Administrator.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Good afternoon.
Ms. MCCARTHY. I am concerned, of course, with these recent rail accidents, and rail safety is of primary concern to us here today, but I'd like to know whether you believe there is a sufficient number of railroad inspectors, because I believe all this talk of bells and whistles and equipment is only so good as the human element. And it's my understanding some reports have been done. I'd like to know whether you think they are accurate. I understand that they suggest that more inspectors are needed.
Page 451 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
If you would speak to that broader issue, I would be very grateful.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Most certainly, Congresswoman.
Before you were in attendance here, I spent a few minutes talking about re-creation of our effort at the FRA and how we are attempting to fulfill our mission with the resources that we have.
A significant change in our safety program is the establishment of the rail safety assurance and compliance program. I think I can explain it most simply by saying to you that it changes the focus from many, many hundreds of site-specific inspections to combing fewer site-specific inspection with a system plan on each railroad which identifies system-wide solutions to safety problems.
For example, very recently we identified 12,000 ABDX brakes, a unit that was having difficulty, and if we had had to find out about these through site-specific inspections, it would have taken years.
Through the safety assurance and compliance program, and, very candidly, with the assistance of rail labor, we were able to work with rail management, rail labor, and the FRA inspectors to come up with a plan to completely change these 12,000 units within 30 days. That's the kind of leverage you can get with this approach to the program.
For that reason—and I could give you many other examples, and would be happy to submit more for the record if you like—that is the reason that I believe, if we continue to pursue this kind of system answers to safety problems, that we can leverage the resources we have very well and get actually increased safety.
Page 452 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MCCARTHY. I appreciate that information. The question I'm asking is that the reports indicate that, while we currently have 400 inspectors, 800 are needed, and I have not heard you speak to that element of my question.
Ms. MOLITORIS. I think the report that you're talking about is several years ago, before my time at the FRA, and I will say very specifically that I am convinced that using the inspector force that we have with the kind of increased training and this system-wide approach to leveraging safety, that we can be extremely effective with the 400 inspectors that we have.
Ms. MCCARTHY. Well, I would respectfully disagree with you. The deaths are still occurring, and, while we have no way of putting a value on that, as you look to these new costs of the new technology, I think you cannot make a judgment without factoring in that human cost that I mentioned in my question, and I really would like to have you or someone on your staff revisit this larger question of how many inspectors are needed, given this new technology, but also given the repeated occurrence of loss of life by those who make their living on the railroads.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Congresswoman, I think that we have had a very, very tragic loss of life in February, in particular, but I would like to offer that in the 2 years previous, this approach to system-wide safety development has been netting good benefit, and the safety numbers have been improving.
I think the kind of broad-based response to something like the brakes, getting 12,000 units turned out in 30 days, pulling out 2,000 jenny cars within a year, this kind of thing begins to let you know what kind of results we can get.
Page 453 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Also, I might point out that we are seeing on the railroads—for example, with the roadway worker safety negotiated rulemaking—a real commitment by the railroads to address these very important safety, life-and-death issues with roadway workers. I know you'll be hearing from Dan Pickett as a witness, who will be talking more about this.
I would be very happy—I know we're pressed for time here—to either submit for the record, or would be happy to come and sit with you and go through this, because I very much appreciate your concerns.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Would my colleague yield?
Ms. MCCARTHY. May I yield?
Mrs. MORELLA. In fact, I was going to be yielding very soon to the gentleman, but yes, of course.
Mr. OBERSTAR. I just have to observe, Madam Administrator, that several years ago, when we were conducting review of safety in aviation, we had an administrator of the FAA who said, ''We can do more with less. We can do more inspections with fewer inspectors.'' In fact, at that very time near-mid-air incidents were rising, accidents were increasing, there were more on-the-ground runway incursions. There were very serious problems in the field of aviation, principally because we didn't have enough inspectors on the ground inspecting airframes and engine work. They were doing a lot of paperwork inspections, but they weren't doing hands-on inspection.
Page 454 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
We increased—Congress provided the funds to increase the number of inspectors by over 1,000. We now have triple the number of inspectors that we had in 1981 and 1982, and safety is at an all-time high in the airline industry.
I think you need to reevaluate your assessment of the 400 inspectors. I don't think it's sufficient. I think you need more people. I don't care about the down-sizing of Government. When you down-size safety, you down-size people's lives.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Let me just comment, Mr. Oberstar. I did not ask for a reduction in inspectors.
Mr. OBERSTAR. I'm sure you didn't. The Office of Management and Budget did.
Mrs. MORELLA. Madam Administrator, when you present the facts to Ms. McCarthy, would you present it to both subcommittees?
Ms. MOLITORIS. I would be very happy to.
Mrs. MORELLA. I'm very interested in that, also.
Ms. MOLITORIS. I'd be very happy to.
[The information received follows:]
Page 455 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Neither FRA nor the Administration has requested a reduction in the number of inspectors in either FY 1996 or FY 1997.
Mrs. MORELLA. And in the tradition of alternating from side to side, I'd like to now recognize Mr. Mica.
Mr. MICA. I thank the distinguished chairman for recognizing me. I have just a couple of quick questions.
Your total budget—this is to the administrator—total budget, I guess, for safety is——
Ms. MOLITORIS. Is $50 million in FY 1996 and $52 million in FY 1997.
Mr. MICA [continuing]. Is $51 million. Now, I wasn't here, but I think you spoke, and in your testimony I heard five R&D projects and maybe three demonstration projects, or something like that, ongoing, train separation.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Mica, we were just talking about advanced train control systems at the time.
Mr. MICA. So are there five R&D and then three train separation projects? Are they separate?
Page 456 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Are you talking about advanced train control, Congressman Mica?
Mr. MICA. Yes.
Ms. MOLITORIS. There are three test beds, and—that's it. Three test beds.
Mr. MICA. Three test beds. What I'm wondering is: with $50 million now, and I understand you're spending about $5 million on one of these programs. The point I'm trying to get to is: with the money that you've got now, are we doing a good job? Are some of the funds being utilized? I guess there are some grants—three grants out there?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Yes.
[The information received follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. MICA. Is that being done on a split basis? I know some go to the State. What percentages of participation are required? My overall question is: how can you stretch the buck a little bit further as far as the money we're spending?
Ms. MOLITORIS. The $51 million is for the office of safety. Let me mention that there is, in 1996, $24 million in the R&D budget. Now, that covers safety of high-speed ground, track structures, and train control, and equipment operations and hazardous materials. So there is a specific R&D budget.
Page 457 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. MICA. OK.
Ms. MOLITORIS. And, in terms of stretching it, Mr. Mica, we are trying to leverage those dollars all that we can.
Mr. MICA. And of that, how much is—is train separation coming out of that, too? Five projects? How much?
Ms. MOLITORIS. That's under the Next Generation Program, and that's about $9 million for positive train control in 1996, and $8 million for 1997, in the President's budget just announced.
Mr. MICA. Well, of the $9 million—and that comes out of the R&D, 9 of 24?
Ms. MOLITORIS. The Next Generation High-Speed Rail Program, because the three corridors——
Mr. MICA. How's the balance of that?
Ms. MOLITORIS. How is it parceled out?
Mr. MICA. Yes.
Page 458 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Why don't——
Mr. MICA. Yes. Don, why don't you respond?
Mr. ITZKOFF. If I could clarify, Mr. Mica, again, the office of safety budget is $50 million, which is the operation of the office with our field offices in eight regions throughout the country. Then we have some budget requests for $24 million for the Office of research and Development, which includes four priority areas: tracks, structures, motor power, and equipment. It also includes a specific component on safety of high-speed ground transportation.
In addition to that, we have a separate infrastructure development program on developing high-potential technologies at lower cost under the Next Generation High-Speed Rail Program.
The positive train control demonstration, part of that was funded in fiscal year 1995. We're requesting $8 million for that component of the program, and under the fiscal year 1996 was $9 million.
I would add that we have substantially leveraged this Federal investment in the different projects for which we are involved. For example, the Michigan project has a contribution by the State of Michigan, and AMTRAK is also contributing to this, for a total project estimate in the range of about $20 million for our investment.
Mr. MICA. If you could divide the money up—you just talked about AMTRAK, and that was my next question. How much money is going toward passenger side and how much toward freight, of the $51 million?
Page 459 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. ITZKOFF. Well, of the $51 million, that is our overall office of safety budget.
Mr. MICA. Right.
Mr. ITZKOFF. Which includes both the allocation for our headquarters staff of professionals, as well as the field staff, including 400 inspectors that we outlined before. We'd be pleased to submit for the record further breakdowns of how the office of safety budget breaks down.
Mr. MICA. Well, maybe we should start at the beginning, if I can, real quick, then. Most of the money, the $51 million, is spent on administration?
Ms. MOLITORIS. No.
Mr. ITZKOFF. No. That includes the funding for our entire regional inspection force and program.
Mr. MICA. OK. Or personnel, in that regard. Then, when you get down to bucks actually spent on the safety programs as far as developing technology—maybe I should be more specific—how many dollars?
Mr. ITZKOFF. The total of our overall research and development activity is $48 million, which includes positive train control under the Next Generation Program and other safety initiatives under the R&D program.
Page 460 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. MICA. And there is not a way to separate out freight versus other——
Ms. MOLITORIS. Sure, there is. We certainly can do that, Mr. Mica. We have each of our projects separated out, and I'd be glad to give you an entire list of our research and development programs and every dollar that goes for every project.
Mr. MICA. Thank you.
[The information received follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. MICA. I won't belabor this any longer. I'm just trying to look at where the money is spent and how they spend it and if you can get any bigger bang for the buck.
Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. I appreciate your asking the question, because, quite frankly, I'd be very pleased if, when you give the response, you tell what percentage of that $24 million R&D budget goes toward the human factor. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar, I'd like to recognize you if you'd like to ask any questions.
Page 461 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a delight to see you presiding over a committee.
Mrs. Morella and I have been long-time friends, living in the same neighborhood in Bethesda, going to the same——
Mrs. MORELLA. He's my constituent. Can you imagine that awesome responsibility.
[Laughter.]
Mr. OBERSTAR. Heavy load to carry, I'm sure.
Madam Administrator, you said, in response to Mr. Wise's question, that on the operative radio question, that you're going to turn this issue over to a committee and have a committee decide on when to issue the rule? Is that right?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Oberstar, as I'm sure you remember from the last two hearings, we talked about the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Right.
Ms. MOLITORIS. That is the group of——
Page 462 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. OBERSTAR. That's not my point. My point is: why don't you give them a deadline? Instead of letting them decide, why don't you move this process along further?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Oberstar, the first meeting of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee is Monday and Tuesday of Next Week, and each——
Mr. OBERSTAR. But are you going to give them a timeframe, ''Get this thing done within X weeks''?
Ms. MOLITORIS. As I discussed with you, Mr. Oberstar, that committee will decide. We will decide together the priority rulemakings that will go on simultaneously, the working groups that will be working on them, and the time table that they will be given to work on them.
Mr. OBERSTAR. You're just going to let them make that decision? You're not going to be the conductor of this operation?
Ms. MOLITORIS. No, sir. I think I just said to you that we will be working together and those time tables will be set.
Mr. OBERSTAR. I want you to be a leader. I want you to take this issue of safety by the horns and make them move it along, give them deadlines, make things happen.
Page 463 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Oberstar, that's exactly what we're doing.
Mr. OBERSTAR. If you give them a deadline, I'd like to see it.
The railroads are opposing this rule at the same time they're pressuring to protect their part of the spectrum in the current FCC restructuring. There is a lot going on here that isn't meeting the public eye, and I think you need to really take charge of this. You're our leader on safety. We want you to be strong on this.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Yes, and I'm very proud of our record, and we have, in fact, the responsibility to set the deadlines. We will be doing that with the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, and it is in response to the President's executive order that we are moving in this direction, because it has been proven—not in every case. I know you have some concerns about the way it worked in another form of transportation, but I think that—I welcome you to watch the performance of this committee.
Mr. OBERSTAR. We'll be watching it very closely.
Incremental train system controls—describe what they are and how they work and what their benefits will be.
Ms. MOLITORIS. May I ask Mr. Ditmeyer, who is our research and development director, to address that question?
Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Ditmeyer?
Page 464 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. DITMEYER. Mr. Oberstar, the incremental train control system is a data link overlay on top of the existing track circuits and signal system that are in place. The system, as I understand it, will make use of GPS receivers on board locomotives so that they can determine their location. The system will provide information over the data link to the locomotives indicating clear blocks down the line beyond that that would normally be conveyed by the lights on the signals.
So the on-board locomotive computers would know that there is a clear shot down the track, and that would enable the trains to operate at speeds greater than 79 miles an hour, which they're limited to today on that route.
The system makes use of digital data links, and also spread spectrum radios and GPS, but it is an overlay on the existing signal system in place.
Mr. OBERSTAR. What are your expectations for this system? How wide its application? When might it be ready for operation?
Mr. DITMEYER. Hardware is being installed right now. We anticipate at least some test trains operating under the system later this year, hopefully in the third quarter.
Given that, we would then look to examine other possible locations. We are interested in the whole issue of inter-operability between the various radio-based train control systems.
Page 465 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. OBERSTAR. Right.
Mr. DITMEYER. But, again, one of the advantages is that it is something that can be installed fairly quickly, and we'll see how reasonably.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Very good.
How do ITCS differ from vehicle proximity rating systems?
Mr. DITMEYER. Vehicle proximity alerting systems are systems at grade crossings. The VPAS systems deal with the ability of trains to notify oncoming vehicles that they're coming. We've tested four VPAS systems out at the Pueblo test center. Some communicate directly from locomotives to vehicles; others communicate to a device at the grade crossing, which in turn communicates with road vehicles.
But the idea is, in all of these systems, that the highway vehicles, initially it would be emergency vehicles, school buses, and so on—would be notified of an oncoming train.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Would they have to have a device in the bus or in the ambulance, or whatever, to——
Mr. DITMEYER. Yes, that would be able to receive the signals being transmitted. Yes.
Page 466 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. OBERSTAR. Like traffic collision avoidance systems in aviation and Motsy transponders?
Mr. DITMEYER. Similar. Yes, sir.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Those might be extremely—if that technology can be developed, would be extremely beneficial in saving lives at grade crossings where we're experiencing in the range of 630 deaths a year.
Mr. DITMEYER. Absolutely.
Mr. OBERSTAR. How far along, in your estimation, is this technology?
Mr. DITMEYER. Of the four systems tested out at Pueblo, two appear to be worthy of further deployment out into the field.
There is the issue of deployment. If it is to work, all of the trains passing that intersection, that grade crossing, must be equipped.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Need to have it on board.
Mr. DITMEYER. Similarly, all of the emergency vehicles passing it must be equipped.
Page 467 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. OBERSTAR. Right.
Mr. DITMEYER. The Intelligent Transportation System program at DOT under the Federal Highway Administration is looking at the whole issue because they're talking about a system in which vehicles have the ability to communicate with the wayside, and, of course, we're looking at positive train control where the trains have the data links so that there are common standards.
One of the real problems will occur if, indeed, one locale, one municipality, or one State decides on one system and another State decides on another system. The big issue here is going to be commonality of standards nationwide and how to achieve that, hopefully voluntarily. That's the challenge that the ITS program is working on and we're working with them on that issue.
Mr. OBERSTAR. I think this has great promise for the future, especially for those high-density crossing areas, and I would recommend focusing on those. I would also recommend getting together with the FAA Technology Center in Atlantic City, which has had a great deal of experience with this type of proliferation of technology and developing uniform standards and applying that standard to the industry.
I think the potential for saving lives, especially in the high-density areas, is very great. I commend you on progressing with this development.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Page 468 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mrs. MORELLA. We gave the gentleman extra time because of the kinds of questions and expertise he had.
Moving along, Mr. Tanner?
Mr. TANNER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I won't take long. I'm sorry I was detained and couldn't be here on time.
I've been brought up to date, I think and hope, about your testimony, and I want to thank all of you for being here today and sharing your knowledge and expertise with us.
I have one question with respect to the positive train control program. I noticed in reading some of the material that's been furnished that you talk about using the GPS system to implement that, and you've been doing some work on it, and it's reflected in one of your 1994 reports. But have you, in your research so far, determined whether or not we need to coordinate with the Department of Defense as it relates to the implementation of the GPS system?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Tanner, in my testimony and in my oral testimony I have identified that we are working not only with the Department of Defense, but with the Coast Guard and with the Intelligent Transportation System development that is through the Federal Highway Administration. So we're approaching this on every conceivable cooperative effort, because it has such tremendous potential, not only for effective communications, but the opportunity to lower cost.
Page 469 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. TANNER. Well, I'm on the Armed Services National Security Committee now, and I would be interested in working with you if it would be helpful in that regard.
How does a differential GPS system operate? I just don't know. I'm not familiar with that term.
Mr. DITMEYER. The normal GPS system uses the constellation of 24 orbiting satellites. The Defense Department has introduced a signal into it so that there is some purposeful distortion of the signals so that unfriendly forces can't get too much accuracy.
Mr. TANNER. That's correct.
Mr. DITMEYER. With the differential system, a GPS receiver is placed on the ground at a surveyed point and calculates its position from the satellites. But it knows its absolute surveyed position, and therefore can calculate the error correction.
That error correction applies over a radius of about 200 miles, so any other GPS receiver within that radius calculates its position and applies this error correction to it and comes in far more precise on where it is.
The Coast Guard is installing these differential systems around the coast of the U.S. and on the navigable waterways.
Mr. TANNER. Thank you.
Page 470 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Tanner.
It is now my pleasure to recognize Mr. Nadler, who has been very patient, waiting to ask the questions. Thank you.
Mr. NADLER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson.
I have a question on a slightly different tack. We're talking about introducing all this high-tech technology for safety purposes, and it's going to take some time, and yet a couple of decades ago we used to run a much higher volume of passenger railroads and a very heavy freight schedule over routes where we now only have one or the other, and we didn't seem to have these safety problems. Now, some people have said that the's because we had more dispatchers.
A number of months ago in this committee we were talking about different legislation. It was alleged that you couldn't have—one reason you didn't want passengers and freight together on the northeast corridor was because you'd have the problems of conflict of high-speed passengers and low-speed freight. Yet, again, as late as the 1950's, you used to have a full freight schedule and a heck of a lot more—the same commuters, roughly, and a heck of a lot more passenger trains on the northeast corridor than you do today.
So how is it that, without all this high-tech stuff that we don't have yet, they were able to do—we were able to do much higher schedules combining freight and passengers 30 and 40 years ago, including during World War II when you had a lot of troop trains, plus all the war material, and the normal train schedule, and today we can't do that without this high-tech equipment or we can't do it at all?
Page 471 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. Mr. Nadler, I think we're doing a lot of it extremely well. If you look at 1978 as a marker, you would——
Mr. NADLER. Why don't you take 1958 or 1948 as a better marker?
Ms. MOLITORIS. Well, I'd have to go back into the records and get those markers, but——
Mr. NADLER. It was before the bankruptcy of the—when you have the private railroads in both passengers and freights hauling very large quantities, when you didn't have the huge competition of the airlines, you had a lot more tonnage and a lot more people. I don't know if you had more tonnage, but you certainly had a lot more people and you certainly had a lot of freight.
Ms. MOLITORIS. You're right about the people, indeed. We have some statistics that I can have for you, although I can go back to 1950, in the 1950's, if you like, but in 1978 it was sort of the high-water mark of accidents and incidents in the rail industry, and the lines—and we've had these at previous hearings, but I can submit them for your information or for the committee—have been going consistently down, and the accident rates have been going down.
Mr. NADLER. Excuse me. You just said that 1978 was the high-water mark of accidents, therefore it's not the thing to look at. What you want to look at is when you had very high volumes of freight and passengers and you had a very low rate of accidents, which comes before the disinvestment in the system, perhaps, before the railroads in the northeast went bankrupt. To compare currently with what happened when they were all crashing doesn't make sense.
Page 472 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
How is it that we were able, decades before 1978, to have high volumes of freight and high volumes of fairly high-speed passenger rail on the same lines where today we're told we can't do it without this high-tech equipment or we can't do it at all?
Ms. MOLITORIS. I don't know who is saying we can't do it at all. I think what we're trying to talk about today, Mr. Nadler, is the opportunity for this technology to make a safe industry even safer. However, 1995 was definitely the highest amount of freight ever moved in the rail industry. I don't know the tonnage, and I can go back in the records to get that to compare for you. But, in fact, statistically, in almost every single category 1994 and 1995 were the safest years in rail history, even though at grade crossings not only is the rail volume going up, but the highway volume is going up. And 1995 was, indeed, the highest volume of rail traffic in the history of the industry that's recorded.
Mr. NADLER. Well, I wanted the—that may be, and I'm certainly not against the introduction of new technology, but it does bother me that we're talking about introducing technology 5, 6, 7, and 8 years from now, or even longer before it's widespread, perhaps, in use, and we have an interim period until we do that, and, again, it may be that in the interim period simply mandating a restoration of the kind of—not necessarily restoration, but an increase toward the level of the number of dispatchers that you used to have which you don't have now, would get better safety until we can introduce this new technology.
Again, when we were discussing the northeast corridor in context of an amendment that I had offered with respect to the Amtrak bill, we were told that you really didn't want freight and passengers on the northeast corridor together because of the safety reason, even though in the 1950's you had essentially the same commuter/passenger load as you do today, you had a very heavy freight schedule, and you had a much heavier inter-city passenger rail schedule than you do today.
Page 473 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
This was said to be a safety problem now, but they had a very safe record with much heavier volume in the 1950's. And it may be that they had more—it may or may not be. I don't know. They certainly didn't have higher technology. They may have had more dispatchers. That's what I'd like to know.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Well, I think, Mr. Nadler, that, in fact, the train control systems that are in place now—even starting from the least-sophisticated systems and moving through manual block and ATC and so on—are safe systems that can be operated in a very safe way.
What we are talking about today are technologies that really over-ride any potential human error that may be out there, and I think that's why they are so important. But I don't think that we should take this discussion to imply that systems that are on the road today can't be operated in a very safe way. They can.
Mr. NADLER. I'm not sure you've answered the question, but let me just ask this——
Ms. MOLITORIS. I certainly can't answer the question about 1950, but I will get that for the record.
Mr. NADLER. That's what I'm asking you. I would appreciate it if you could get the information as to rail and passenger frequency of trains, throughput, for the northeast corridor and for other densely traveled sections in the 1950's or the 1940's and today, along with numbers of crashes and so forth, so we can take a look at them, and the number of dispatchers, because I'm told that today you have a dispatcher per 1,000 miles, and you used to have it for much shorter segments, because we have better technology. But maybe that doesn't work properly.
Page 474 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLITORIS. And you're also interested, as I understand it, those that have freight and passenger together.
Mr. NADLER. Absolutely.
Ms. MOLITORIS. In addition to the throughput.
Mr. NADLER. Absolutely.
[The information received follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. NADLER. Freight and passenger together, because one of the things we're being told is that we should separate them, and maybe we should, but, then again, maybe not.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Ideally, of course, that would be fine.
Mr. NADLER. We don't have infinite money for track.
Ms. MOLITORIS. That's the point. We have certain resources in congested areas that we have to maximize.
Mr. NADLER. That's right.
Page 475 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. ITZKOFF. I just wanted to add, Mr. Nadler, that yes, you are correct that there used to be a significant number of miles in the railroad system that had automatic train control capabilities. In 1954, for example, 17,000 miles of the railroad system in the United States had that capability of automatic train control to stop a train, similar to what we have in the Northeast Corridor, which was a track-based circuits.
The discussion we are having today, given the fact that many of those miles were taken off by the railroads, given their deteriorating financial condition prior to deregulation, is how can we evaluate the potential of providing an equivalent level of safety with a newer technology that would do the same thing at a decreased cost.
I think we had a discussion earlier about certain areas that it may well make sense to augment the existing automatic train control system where there already is an embedded investment, and I think that was a part of all of the issues we'll be looking at at the risk assessment that we're doing right now.
Mr. NADLER. Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. And it seems that with the volume having increased, you also have the problem of the same tracks, which may be one of the responses—I mean using the same tracks.
I want to thank you for being here. This has been a very, very long time that we've held you, because there have been a lot of questions. Obviously, you're very, very important to the discussion of technology and how we can avert accidents, so I thank you, Administrator Molitoris, Director Arena, and I thank your colleagues for being here with you. You shed a lot of light on the situation. And as we progress there may be more questions that we would like to get to you for responses if that's OK.
Page 476 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Thank you.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much. We want to offer, at any time, if you or the committee or either of the committees would like in-depth briefings, we would be very, very happy to come over ourselves, in addition to the response to questions.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Ms. MOLITORIS. Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. And now if the second panel would come forward: Mr. Edwin Harper, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Railroads, who will be accompanied by Mr. Robert Gallamore, general director, strategic analysis of the Union Pacific Railroad; and Mr. Dennis Sullivan, chief operating officer of the National Rail Passenger Corporation, AMTRAK; Mr. Daniel Foth, executive director, commuter rail, American Public Transit Association; and Mr. W.D. Pickett, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, accompanied by Floyd Mason, who is vice president, and Joe Mattingly, director of research.
I hope we have enough chairs there for this very important group.
Again, I preface this panel, too, by thanking you for your patience in allowing us to query the first panel. You probably found some of it kind of interesting and probably wanted to respond to a lot of those questions.
Page 477 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
So maybe I'll just—let's just start off with comments. Again, I'm going to impose the 5-minute rule.
We'll start off then, if it's all right, with Mr. Harper.
Mr. HARPER. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Morella.
Mrs. MORELLA. Did you have another order in mind that you would prefer?
Mr. HARPER. No. This is fine with us. Fine with me, anyway.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. Fine. Thank you, Mr. Harper.
TESTIMONY OF EDWIN L. HARPER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT E. GALLAMORE, GENERAL DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ANALYSIS, UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD; DENNIS F. SULLIVAN, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, NATIONAL RAIL PASSENGER CORPORATION (AMTRAK); DANIEL FOTH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-COMMUTER RAIL, AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSIT ASSOCIATION; AND DAN PICKETT, PRESIDENT, BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD SIGNALMEN, ACCOMPANIED BY FLOYD MASON, VICE PRESIDENT SOUTHEAST, AND JOE MATTINGLY, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH
Mr. HARPER. Chairwoman Morella, Mr. Wise, the Association of American Railroads appreciates the opportunity to testify about railroad technology.
Page 478 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
There was comment and question about the railroads' commitment. The railroads' commitment is to safety. The time line is now, and this is exemplified by the decade 1985 through 1994, when the class one railroads earned net income of $18 billion, while making more than twice that amount in terms of capital expenditures of over $38 billion. And it was this investment by the railroads that helped drive down employee personal injuries 56 percent, while enabling the industry to handle 19 percent more car loads.
All of the railroads' capital investments in the area of track, signals, and equipment contribute to improved safety. The industry's investment in train separation has been carefully structured.
Train separation based on signal systems, voice radio communication, and railroad operating rules provides, as FRA reported to Congress in 1994, good safety performance and low safety risk.
The industry has continually invested significant capital in modernizing these systems whenever traffic density has required a higher level of safety.
During the last several years the industry has searched for new technologies to reduce the cost of train control systems. Communications now handled by copper wire or commercial carriers are being increasingly shifted to wireless systems.
The locating of trains presently detected with track circuits is proposed to be done with transponders or global positioning systems.
Page 479 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The technology changes are radical. Some of the new concepts have never been implemented on a large scale in the transportation industry.
There are a number of points to consider in connection with one communications-based system being tested, positive train separation or PTS.
First, the largest cause of rail-related fatalities does not stem from train collisions. It's grade crossings. They're the primary source.
No. 2, PTS will be a considerable investment, estimated by the FRA in 1994 at between $843 million to $1.1 billion, with an annual maintenance cost of over $176 million a year.
Third, when fully developed, it may mean different things to different railroads, because no two freight railroads have the same operating environment, the same signal systems, the same train densities, and the same thing is true of the commuter lines.
Fourth, while commuter and inter-city passenger services are radically different from freight operations, some locomotives must operate on both systems, making inter-operability an important consideration in PTS' development.
Fifth, FRA concluded in its July, 1994, report to the Congress that PTS cannot be justified on the basis of safety benefits, alone. This means that economic questions must be answered, such as the difference in economics for commutation and inter-city passenger services versus freight service.
Page 480 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Last and most importantly, our industry and the regulators need to be sure that PTS works in the railroad environment. There are four PTS projects now in initial stages of development in North America, including the high-priority pilot project being undertaken by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific Railroads. These projects will reduce uncertainty about PTS' future by providing answers to a number of outstanding difficult technical questions concerning PTS and its commercial viability.
There are also external reasons for uncertainty. One is the proposal you've heard about from the FCC to allow other radio users to operate on radio channels now used for railroad safety.
Another is the concept that would require railroads to compete in auctions for additional spectrum. If either is implemented, PTS could be adversely affected.
AAR is concerned that Government, wanting to take some kind of action after recent accidents, may impose some inappropriate mandate that could displace or constrain the private investment and R&D policy that has proven its worth.
Public policy that attempts to lock into law specific technology can slow the advance of technology, waste scarce resources, and adversely affect the railroad's competitive position, driving traffic onto over-burdened highways, which will ultimately reduce safety, as a whole, for the Nation, since railroads are far safer than highways for both passengers and for freight.
Page 481 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
It would be a mistake for Government to direct railroads to invest in PTS, even if it were shown to be viable. Rather, Government should set appropriate levels of safety performance based on risk assessment, and if a railroad can meet that level with existing train control techniques, the railroad should be permitted to do so.
With me to assist in answering your questions today is Robert E. Gallamore, general director of strategic analysis, Union Pacific Railroad, who is a unique person because he has the responsibility for the world's most advanced PTS pilot project.
Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Harper. And I also appreciated the fact that you gave a very thorough written testimony, which will be included in its entirety in the record, and it was great that you gave us a synopsis of it.
If I might, then, in the order of the schedule, defer now to Mr. Dennis Sullivan.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to address this joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Railroads and the Subcommittee on Technology. I have a prepared statement, and I ask that it be included in the record.
Mrs. MORELLA. Without objection.
Mr. SULLIVAN. I'd like to summarize my thoughts that are included in that testimony.
Page 482 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
I've been railroading now for nearly 32 years on the New York Central, Penn Central, and AMTRAK. I've seen great changes in the 1970's and 1980's as railroads disappeared, new railroads and short lines emerged, and the National Railroad Passenger Corporation was created. The future of railroads during that period of time seemed questionable.
Today we see an efficient, competitive industry. The Staggers Act certainly helped get the ball rolling on that. Railroads had money to invest in technology and did invest billions, much of it in technology, superior plant and equipment such as new signal and communications systems, track infrastructure such as rail and concrete ties, advanced track construction and maintenance equipment, locomotives, rolling stock, central control systems, etc.
Two facets of this struck me. One is that the basic technology for separating and controlling train movements has been available since the mid 1920's. The railroad industry consistently has learned by experience and has upgraded these systems to improve safety and efficiency, and this continues today.
My prepared testimony highlights the progression in rail safety during this century.
Building on this I believe is relevant to discuss the next generation of safety AMTRAK will deploy for high-speed rail in the northeast corridor.
Washington to Boston will have a maximum authorized speed of 150 miles per hour for our new high-speed passenger trains and will have the most advanced system in North America in place to separate and control these train movements. This is an adaptation of European technology that we've used to upgrade our own technology—cab signaling, speed control, etc.
Page 483 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The northeast corridor is the busiest track in America for passenger trains. Approximately 1,000 trains per day move on various segments of this railroad, also freight, non-revenue, deadhead moves, and work trains.
We have centralized traffic control systems in place with control offices in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
The central control of switches and signals which allows trains to operate over selected routes, and also the vital logic in the field in this system is fail-safe, and I think that's a very important point—that the logic is in the field and it is fail-safe. In other words, if the system fails, it goes to a more restrictive signal.
Cab signaling is also present on this railroad and allows wayside signals to be picked up and displayed in the cab of the locomotives and provides engineers continuous signal display.
In high-speed rail, we must do certain things. We must improve the current CTC systems. We've designed a trackside transponder-based system, which we're putting in between New Haven and Boston. There will be a test this year in the State of Delaware near Wilmington.
We're also adding nine-aspect cab signaling, and we're adding civil and temporary speed restriction enforcements, which are enhancements to the signaling systems that we have in place today.
Page 484 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The nine-aspect cab signaling will provide for signals in the cab from resting clear up to 150 miles per hour, will allow more speed signals to be displayed in the cab so trains can run safely and efficiently. We will also have speed control as part of the system, which will enforce speed through penalty brake applications if an engineer fails to reduce speed to correspond with signal indication.
Grade crossings—the single most significant safety problem on the railroads today is grade crossing accidents—over 600 fatalities in the industry last year at grade crossings.
The north end of the northeast corridor will have approximately 12 grade crossings left when the high-speed rail project is completed. At School Street in Mystic, Connecticut, along with the FRA and Connecticut DOT, we're putting in an advanced warning overlay signal system—and I have a brochure that I can submit for the record detailing that—which will, we hope, be a pilot project to help improve grade crossing safety in the future.
This advanced overlay signal system will have four-quadrant gates, a transponder embedded in the road so that it can sense objects blocking the tracks. This is on the highway and, if blocked, a signal is beamed to an oncoming train so the train can stop short of the grade crossing.
This technology has been used in Sweden for many years, and has significantly reduced grade crossing accidents in that country.
Page 485 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
School Street in a few years will have 50 trains per day operating over it at 70 miles per hour maximum speed, and we estimate 900 highway vehicles per day in the summer going across the crossing.
The system, if successful, may be a technology which section 18 highway funds can be used to offer greater protection than we have today at grade crossings.
We also use our track geometry car, which has a state-of-the-art laser gauge system to test all northeast corridor tracks. We have an FRA waiver to operate over 110 miles an hour, which requires us to inspect those tracks every 60 days, which we do.
In our corridor we make the car available to test freight railroad tracks. This helps all users of tracks, both AMTRAK, freight, and commuter.
We have formed a partnership with the NTSB. We meet quarterly since 1991 to review their recommendations. We have an excellent working relationship, and this relationship also extends not only to review of recommendations, but to accident investigation.
I believe we have both gained knowledge by this relationship, and I would recommend that the rest of the industry look at forming such a partnership with the NTSB. I think it would be beneficial.
Some final thoughts. Over my 32 years in the railroad industry I've seen great change. AMTRAK must prove to its customers each day that we operate safely. We're only as good as our last trip.
Page 486 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The common denominator in everything we do is safety. Railroads, including AMTRAK, continuously search for safer ways to run their business through research, such as research done at the Transportation Test Center at Pueblo, Colorado, through our suppliers, and through universities and colleges.
AMTRAK will continue to monitor the PTS developments. We've watched this closely through our participating in committees at the AAR. Myself and others sit on these committees and watch these developments closely.
We, by the way, operate over all four test sections in the United States that have been discussed here, so we're very concerned and interested in the development of this technology.
Safety is good business. Regardless of the technology we've seen developed and implemented, these systems depend on individuals, and I believe we must look at training and retraining our people in the use of these systems.
Passenger rail travel today remains the safest mode of transportation in the country. Technology is being installed in the NEC on our equipment and in other locations, but I must point out that it is costly, and certainly AMTRAK has testified many times about the need for a dedicated source of capital funding. This would be most helpful in getting the process speeded up.
I'd be glad to answer your questions at any time. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Page 487 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mrs. MORELLA. That's a taxing point on which to conclude.
Mr. Daniel Foth.
Mr. FOTH. Thank you. My name is Daniel Foth, and I'm the executive director for commuter rail with the American Public Transit Association. I'm here today representing APTA's 15 commuter railroad systems located in the United States.
We appreciate the opportunity to present the views of America's commuter railroads on the issue of rail safety as it applies to technology development for rail passenger service.
We welcome the subcommittee's interest in new technologies for commuter railroads. For commuter rail, research and development lacks a comprehensive, coordinated effort. In spite of this, we still maintain one of the best safety records in all of transportation.
We think an excellent model for commuter rail research and development is the effort conducted currently by the Association of American Railroads. We currently use AAR's research in many common areas, including passenger car components such as wheels and trucks, along with research on improved rail and other track and track structures.
In addition, the Volpe Center and Transportation Research Board have also conducted limited research on certain aspects of passenger cars and commuter rail operations, but much more needs to be done.
Page 488 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
To improve safety, commuter railroads need a comprehensive research effort similar to that of the AAR that specifically involves and benefits commuter rail operations.
The primary goal of every commuter rail system is to provide safe, efficient, and low-cost service to commuters. I'm pleased to note that we are doing that.
Since 1980, APTS's commuter railroad members have invested billions of dollars into safety improvements to rail passenger cars, signal systems, dispatching facilities, track and track structures, maintenance and service facilities, in addition to passenger facilities.
In addition, our members review the available reports and information from the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Transit Administration and others to determine whether safety recommendations made to individuals are applicable to their specific commuter railroad.
However, despite the amount of money already invested, there is still much more to do.
Unfortunately, for public sector commuter railroads, this is an era of limited Federal, State, and local support; thus, each commuter system must carefully allocate its limited funding to where it would provide the biggest return for the dollar invested from a safety, customer service, efficiency, and productivity viewpoint. All commuter railroads work hard to properly balance limited funding with their operational needs.
Page 489 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
To assist the commuter rail industry with its safety research efforts, we ask that the respective subcommittees consider the development of a Federal effort to assist commuter railroads with research and development. Commuter railroad systems, like their transit counterparts, have limited funding and do not have the ability to fund transit research on their own.
Suppliers also operate on thin profit margins, and likewise have few dollars for research and development funding.
Crashworthiness testing, alone, can cost millions of dollars, especially if actual crash testing is used of vehicles. Developing the optimum crashworthiness requires careful research and testing to fully account for all reasonable variables and solutions.
And let us not forget to other half of the equation—collision avoidance. Accident prevention requires a focus on both crashworthiness and collision avoidance systems that minimize human factors.
As I've said, research costs money. For example, we agreed in late January, with the FRA, to prepare a plan to develop and maintain passenger car rail safety standards. We estimate that this effort, alone, will cost APTA's commuter rail members over half a million dollars to implement and another $100,000 a year to maintain.
This funding has to come out of already tight operating budgets; however, we feel this isn't enough to properly maintain these standards. The optimum would be more testing; however, current funding for testing falls fall short of what is needed.
Page 490 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
We would like to see leadership from Congress on a commuter research and development effort that will provide the impetus needed to get this effort going. We hope that the subcommittees will examine this issue closely when the ISTEA Act is reauthorized next year. In the meantime, we encourage the subcommittees to recommend to the Appropriations Committee an increase for rail passenger transportation research through both the FRA and FTA.
I want to note that the entire FTA fiscal year 1996 budget for research and development was earmarked, leaving no new funding or available funding for commuter rail safety research.
In addition, we suggest that the subcommittees recommend to the NTSB to hold regular meetings with interest groups, such as AMTRAK was noting with their meetings, which might include APTA rail safety on safety matters, especially if the NTSB recommendations suggest technology improvements.
As we noted in the previous subcommittees, one area that is immediately ripe for research funding is positive train separation, or what is commonly known as communication-based signal systems. Although PTS is not yet feasible, initial tests show a great deal of promise for the rail industry.
With Federal and local funds, scarce money could be put to better use to prevent accidents, rather than devoting massive amounts of money to crashworthiness.
The FRA, as they noted, is currently testing PTS in various freight and AMTRAK lines; however, we would like to suggest that such a test also be done on commuter lines. Commuter operations differ greatly from both freight and AMTRAK operations, and we think that this system would prove successful. A commuter test needs to be done.
Page 491 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Our goal is, again, to get customers to work and home again in a safe and efficient manner. If we fail in this effort, the result will be to encourage people to go back to their cars, where the death rate is at least five times greater than that of commuter rail, not to mention the increased pollution and congestion problems caused by increased automobile traffic.
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer questions when the time comes.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Foth.
Now I'd like to turn to Mr. Pickett.
Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and other members of this committee.
We want to thank you for holding these hearings and for allowing the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen to participate.
Accompanying me today are Floyd Mason, vice president, southeast, and Joe Mattingly, our BRS director of research. Both of these individuals assist me in our effort to stay apprised of new technology.
In our full testimony, the BRS has identified many issues that would be effective and appropriate in improving our Nation's railroad signal systems. In my brief opening statement, I will try to touch on proven technology that is presently available, because, as you recognize today, much of the testimony here today has been on if and when the technology becomes available.
Page 492 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The BRS believes AMTRAK currently incorporates the safest form of proven railroad train control technology available today. Furthermore, this signal equipment is available right now, off the shelf, to the entire railroad industry.
Since assuming the ownership of the northeast corridor in 1976, AMTRAK has expanded and improved its signal and train control systems to provide cab signaling and automatic train control over the entire corridor.
As you know, the Federal Railroad Administration requires all trains traveling in excess of 79 miles per hour to have an automatic cab signal, automatic train control, or automatic train stop system. AMTRAK utilizes both the automatic cab signaling and automatic train control systems and requires that all carriers operating on the northeast corridor be equipped with both systems.
We realize that improving a railroad signal system is not an inexpensive matter; however, when you consider the benefits to railroad operations and the safety features and assurances provided to both the general public and to railroad workers, such costs are in no way prohibitive.
When it comes to railroad safety, cost should not be the primary determining factor. In fact, such cost should simply be considered as a part of doing business if railroads truly desire to move passengers or haul hazardous freight through our Nation's environmentally sensitive areas and populated towns.
Page 493 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Since assuming control of the northeast corridor some two decades ago, AMTRAK has invested more than $250 million to rebuild and modernize its signal and train control system. AMTRAK has replaced most of its old, mechanically locked inter-locking machines with modern, vital relay microprocessor control systems based on fail-safe design principles.
AMTRAK is improving and expanding both the wayside and on-board cab signal systems, providing additional aspects for better train control, increased traffic capacity, and operation at higher speeds.
The present system provides continuous cab signal control, displaying a signal in the cab which corresponds to the wayside signal controlling to block in which the train is traveling. In addition, an automatic train control system enforces the maximum speed associated with each cab signal. This compensates for human error by forcing the engineer to comply with the signal.
When a more restrictive signal is displayed and the train exceeds the speed which is allowed, the engineer must, within 5 seconds, acknowledge the new signal and apply the brake to reduce to the prescribed speed. Otherwise, the engineers will be issued a penalty brake application, which would automatically bring the train to a safe stop.
We note that AMTRAK's northeast corridor represents the most advanced technology currently available to the railroad industry. This overlay signal system utilizes modern vital relay and microprocessor control systems which are based on proven fail-safe principles. Such a system arrangement provides the greatest level of safety. Furthermore, this vital logic circuitry undergoes tests on a weekly, monthly, or an annual basis in correspondence with the FRA regulations.
Page 494 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
As I stated, this proven technology is readily available off the shelf to our Nation's railroad industry today.
If the FRA and the railroad industry are really serious about safety, instead of touting positive train separation or positive train control, the application of proven cab signal and speed control equipment can now and could have been installed on trains operating in the Portland/Seattle corridor following the November 11, 1993, Kelso, Washington accident.
All it would take would be to install the cab signal track circuits in the corridor and equip BN locomotives with the UP-style cab signals and automatic train stop. UP trains could operate without any additional equipment.
As for the other rail lines, the cab signals, speed control, and track circuitry now in service on AMTRAK's northeast corridor, the Long Island Railroad, the Metro North Railroad, and Conrail clearly proves that current off-the-shelf technology is now available.
The problem with PTS or PTC is that they are still concepts which are somewhat flawed and non-vital in nature. PTS may take over 2 years to manufacture, test, and debug before it can be placed into actual railroad service. Furthermore, cost for the PTS at least are estimates.
If the track circuits for cab signals and speed control were in service on the New Jersey Transit line near Secaucus, the recent accident may very well have been prevented, because the locomotives was equipped with cab signals and speed control.
Page 495 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
There is no need to wait for safety-proven cab signal and speed control equipment. It is now available from at least three suppliers.
In closing, we urge each of you to review our statement. I hope that in the future a more proactive approach will allow us to make safety improvements before lives are lost or public attention is again focused on a series of accidents.
Again, I thank you for allowing us to participate in this hearing, and we will gladly answer any questions you might have.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr Pickett. I thank all the members of the panel. You did pretty much revert to our time sequence, and I appreciate that.
A question maybe to Mr. Harper. When we have our next panel, we're going to have Rockwell as one of the panelists, and Rockwell will testify that its ARES advanced train control technology could improve safety levels by a factor of as much as 100 to 1 because the technology diminishes the element of human effort.
If this is the case, why isn't the railroad industry pushing and pursuing implementation of the ARES technology?
Mr. HARPER. Madam Chairman, I was surprised when I read that statement in the testimony, which I saw shortly before the meeting today, and I did have the opportunity to ask Mr. Gerhard Thelen of Conrail, who is an expert in this area and is familiar with the source materials, if I may ask him to comment on that. He's with us here today. Mr. Thelen?
Page 496 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. THELEN. Thank you. I was surprised to see 100 to 1 safety improvement. In the Rockwell testimony, you will see that Draper Laboratory is mentioned as the agency or organization that made this safety analysis. That's the same organization that the AAR has hired to look at ATCS or other train control issues, and the author of the paper for Draper was Dr. Weinstein.
I went through his report that he did for us. By no means do you see the kind of improvement that's alleged by Rockwell.
On the other hand, the Draper study did not look at the whole system. If you talk about train control and you talk about advanced train control, you have basically two components. One is the communication system. The other one is the software that is written to handle the safety.
This is fairly new science. It has never been applied on a large scale on any railway system in the world. From my understanding—and I'm not completely familiar with this—it has been tried by the FAA in a system called AAS, and after several years and billions of dollars of overruns had to be broken down into smaller components because it was not manageable.
Now, when Draper did the analysis on ARES or on ATCS, this software was not available because it was not written.
The other aspect is, you can prove in a demonstration or a test that small components of a system work individually, but if you try to pull them all together and implement them, it's a different thing because you have to do it under traffic, and it has to be safe all the while you're doing it. This is what we term ''migration'' or ''deployment'' strategy.
Page 497 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
As far as I know and anyone I have talked to in the industry, nobody has really so far mastered this, and I think the BNSF/UP test is the first attempt to try to do this from day one, and I'm sure Mr. Gallamore will talk to this at some greater length.
The other aspect is, if you take a system and try to deploy it under the communications-based system, you've got to make sure that the data, whether it's the track structure, the physical track structure, is accurate, or the train information is accurate.
You have to base your safety decision as to how you brake the train and when you start applying the brakes on this information. The data integrity has not been, to my knowledge, fully addressed by anyone because it's a monumental task.
For this reason, I think that the systems are in the research stage. They are starting to be developed in pilot tests. In my opinion, the 100 to 1 safety ratio is not achievable with ARES. My question arises because it is described in their testimony as a non-vital overlay system, which means that you cannot really depend on it for safety. It just gives you information that the locomotive engineer can use to assist in handling the train safely.
I question whether any safety improvement or any significant safety improvement can be achieved, because of the danger, if you have a system that's not completely fool-proof or fail-safe, and people get complacent and get used to it, and the day it fails and is not available, somebody may assume it's available and you can have an accident.
Mrs. MORELLA. I guess you could say you question that finding.
Page 498 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
[Laughter.]
Mr. THELEN. I would say so.
Mrs. MORELLA. We'll see what Rockwell's response is.
I just want to ask one final question, because of time. Incidentally, I appreciated this particular panel here. We had Mr. Harper talking about the safety review and the Federal Government should set levels, as a matter of fact, cautioning against kind of quick mandates; Mr. Sullivan talking about the grade crossings particularly being important, giving the history of improvements; Mr. Foth, who talks about also holding back with regard to quick mandates in terms of changes in regulations, about more R&D money, and NTSB should be pulling you all in when they have any work that's taking place; and Mr. Pickett, who's saying cost should not be an object if you're talking about human lives, and, indeed, grade crossings are the biggest safety hazard that we do have.
I guess I want to direct to AAR and APTA: if, in fact, you feel that there should be no quick mandates, are there any safety improvements that should be made immediately?
Mr. HARPER. I would say we're making safety improvements every day. One of the things that we were pleased to provide the committee is a copy of the paper on technology and safety in the railroad industry, and I believe in that paper, on beginning page two of the body of the paper, you'll find an exhibit of all of the possible causes of accidents. You'll find the success we've had in reducing the accidents in the last decade. You'll find the technologies that we have already applied and put in place that have achieved those results. You'll find another column that lists the technologies that we are currently implementing. And then, finally, on the right-hand side you'll find a list of technologies, including PTS, which are in the experimental stage—not only PTS, but also electrically controlled pneumatic braking systems.
Page 499 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
So we feel that we've done a lot. We're doing more now in terms of implementation. And we're experimenting on the leading edge of bringing technology, bringing more safety into the railroad industry.
And I emphasize the commitment that we've made to the PTS project in support of the BNSF/UP project. There are many things that go along with that that may be well beyond the immediate interest of the committee—better computer programs, for example, need to be developed. If you're going to have the central control system actually brake a train, it's a fairly sophisticated issue as to how you develop a computer program that knows how to properly brake a train, put the brakes on, under the specific circumstances you might find—the makeup of the train, the weather conditions, is the rail straight or curved.
All of these things are the kinds of things that the AAR, the industry, is working on in support of the project that Mr. Gallamore is heading for the UP.
Mrs. MORELLA. Did you want to comment, Mr. Foth?
Mr. FOTH. Yes. Regarding APTA's efforts, the commuter railroad industry immediately responded to the emergency order that the FRA issued after the Maryland accident, and I would say—and I think the FRA's characterized this the same way—that we not only worked closely with the FRA in implementation, but, I think, with the exception of one system who had some very unique opportunities to overcome, every commuter rail system is in full compliance with that order today, and on April 5th we will all be submitting our interim system safety plans from each system, which is sort of the next step from the emergency order.
Page 500 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Second, in some respects I feel like I've lived at the FRA over the past 3 weeks. I got over here from a meeting where I've spent the last 2 days at the FRA working on passenger rail car safety standards, which was an effort started last June, and in that effort we have agreed, as a group, that we need to develop sort of an interim rule which will implement sort of safety standards which need to be out now, and then we will try to accelerate as much as possible the final rule effort, which is now currently scheduled for 1998, I believe, and we're going to try to get that done by the end of 1997.
But the final thing with commuter railroads, as I mentioned in our testimony, a lot of this for us is a zero sum gain. We'd love to be able to put out cab control signals in every system around the country, but it's a dollars and cents item for us. And, for example, in New Jersey Transit's case, when they took over the operation of the commuter railroad, the railroad was in very bad shape, and they had to make some value judgments. I guess you could question those in hindsight, but in terms of what was most important—getting the track structure up to where you actually could run the trains, getting the cars safe so they brake and operate properly.
So when we talk about not giving us mandates in haste, these are the factors that we'd like you folks to consult the industry so you have a better sense of what our operational situations are. It isn't just a matter where we sat back and decided, ''Well, we're not going to spend money on cab signals.'' It's a function of which do you do first, and those are value judgments that every commuter system and I suspect every freight railroad make every day, again, to squeeze the best bang out of your buck for safety improvements.
Page 501 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. I'm going to relinquish the chairwomanship over to Ms. Molinari. Isn't that a nice word. Also, I did want to comment on picking up on a question that she asked earlier. Incidentally, that last question I know the rest of you may want to make some comments on.
But the question that she asked Mr. Kim when she said, ''Is this your birthday?'' I might ask her, ''Is this your birthday?'' It is. Happy birthday.
Ms. MOLINARI [resuming Chair]. Thank you.
I'd certainly like to call on the ranking Member, Mr. Wise, very well named.
Mr. WISE. I appreciate that. Thank you. It's a pleasure to serve under either of the two chairwomen.
Let me say that, as Mrs. Morella leaves, I leave the areas of high-tech to her, and so I'll get back to low-tech issues.
If I could, Mr. Harper, I'm just going to pick up the low-tech issue I was discussing with Ms. Molitoris, the FRA administrator, concerning the radio situation, operational radios in locomotives.
Page 502 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
As I recall, the Rail Subcommittee, on a bipartisan basis, responded to AAR's request to contact the Federal Communications Commission and to urge that the radio spectrum not be re-allocated, feeling that it might endanger safety, and particularly radio communications, yet the assertion has also been made that AAR is resisting the rulemaking requiring operational radio in every lead locomotive.
Would you care to comment on that?
Mr. HARPER. I'd be happy to.
First of all, let me thank the members of the committee for their concern about the use of radio spectrum for safety purposes in the railroad industry. It is a very important issue and of very great concern to all of us concerned about safety in the railroad industry.
The standard practice throughout the freight railroad industry is—and I can't comment on the commuter industry—certainly with all the chief operating officers I've talked to, their plan and their intent is to have an operating radio on every locomotive.
There may be times, however, and special circumstances when, for some reason, there isn't an operating radio available at a particular time when it's time for a train to leave. At that point there is an issue of judgment. Would it be a safe move of a locomotive to allow that locomotive to proceed without a radio? And so the interest of the railroad industry is to be allowed to make that judgment as to whether or not it would be safe to move the locomotive without an operating radio, and that's simply all we ask, and that's our point of view on it.
Page 503 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. Does anybody else care to comment on that?
Mr. FOTH. I'd like to comment from the commuter side.
Given the fact that most of our systems operate with some sort of CTC control, if we don't have a radio we don't operate.
I wanted to respond earlier to the question or the concern about New Jersey Transit and radios. As I understand the situation, the concern was having a hand-held radio as opposed to a working radio in the cab. As I understand what happened with that accident, that radio became non-functional right after the accident, and so that was the question.
Having just spent 3 hours discussing this very issue with UTU and the folks at the Passenger Safety Standards over at the FRA, the concern for us isn't so much an operational radio, it's the redundant systems. And if you have a primary and a redundant system, they both have to be operational, and what do you do if they're not, if one system is up but the other isn't, and how quickly you have to repair the system so they both work.
So it isn't a question about having operational radio, it's more a question of what do you do if one system goes down—not both, but if one system goes down during a train movement and if you're Long Island Railroad carrying 1,200 people and 2-minute headways, you sure as heck don't want to stop the train at the station while you get your redundant system fixed.
Page 504 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
At least in talking with both the unions and the FRA, I think we're going to come to some reasonable approach to how to repair the redundant system in time, or the primary system, if one or the other goes down.
Mr. WISE. I've got to believe this one can be fairly quickly negotiated.
Does anybody else care to—Mr. Gallamore?
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Wise, Madam Chair, the issue I would like to address is slightly different from this. This hearing has been very helpful in clarifying some of the really difficult issues that we face. In this case, the reason for our insistence upon having available band width that is under the control of the railroads is really a future vision type of issue. It's because we know that at this time it becomes appropriate to try to deploy positive train separation systems that are based on communications, there is going to be a tremendous amount of messaging back and forth between the train and the control center or the wayside.
These are going to challenge the physical laws of nature regarding the spectrum, and that's why we have to be sure that we don't get a busy signal, in effect, when we get on the radio.
Now, it isn't a voice radio issue that we're most concerned about; it has to do with digital communications, the width of the pipeline through which we have to channel these billions of messages to operate a full, nationwide system.
Page 505 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. I have more questions, but in the interest of time I'm going to defer.
Mr. Pickett, did you wish to answer?
Mr. PICKETT. Yes, I would like to say, on behalf of rail labor, I don't think, while Mr. Harper did say that they reviewed it on the interest of safety, I don't think we can recall any time that they held a train until they get the radio. So they always seem to move their trains, even if the radio is failing in the head unit.
I think it is something that does need to be, and I think that, while I'm speaking on the—it's not on a signal issue, it's more on a rail labor end of it.
Mr. WISE. I do have additional questions, Madam Chair. I will hold them, or perhaps submit them in writing. I just would note, though, before I exit this microphone, that we still have a problem.
In the testimony I still hear a conflict between whether or not to direct the existing systems such as cab controls, cab signaling, ATC, and others, existing systems, or to wait for PTS and PTC.
I'm just afraid that 10 years from now we may be holding a hearing about when this fully becomes implemented. The problem is that PTC costs too much, but at the same time we haven't gone ahead with some of the other systems.
Page 506 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. Harper?
Mr. HARPER. If I may comment just briefly on that, I think what you heard from Mr. Pickett, and perhaps from myself, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Foth, is the railroad corridors can operate safely with the technology that we have today, and the key is: what is the appropriate technology for the particular corridor in question?
For example, AMTRAK has just purchased new train sets, and they have not equipped them with PTS because they are absolutely convinced that their method of operation is perfectly safe. PTS is something that we're experimenting with and may well be appropriate for the future.
Bob, do you want to add anything to that?
Mr. GALLAMORE. Just real quickly.
I think the real issue here is that our positive train separation system is going to be designed to handle both freight and passenger issues. The reason we're pursuing it is actually to speed up the time table, because we can't afford the deployment cycle for a nationwide system of old technology. We have to find something that's cutting edge, but also will be provable in the sense that it will solve everyone's concerns about safety.
The real key point for us is that if we don't use the new technologies like the global positioning system, differential DGPS (DGPS), and digital communications-based systems, we won't be able to bring down the cost of the systems to the point where it makes it effective to deploy them.
Page 507 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
So the whole question, to me, turns on: what's the practical answer here? It's not a question of would it work to deploy the AMTRAK system on our railroad. It might or it might not. I think it would be extremely difficult because they have a default method of determining the length and weight of the train for their breaking algorithm. We have a much different type of situation with long, heavy trains, mountain grades, and so on. It just wouldn't work very well.
So it really depends, as Ed says, on the specific corridor.
Mr. WISE. I see I started something. If I could, Madam Chair, I'll go a little bit more.
Ms. MOLINARI. Yes.
Mr. MATTINGLY. I'd like to respond to what AMTRAK is employing now. AMTRAK is employing a system which uses some of the latest technology. A lot of it is microprocessor-based. It's not the old things you heard back in the 1930's or the 1940's or the 1950's. It's a progressive system. It's based on some basic foundations of signaling, which is on a fail-safe principle. There are certain elements of the system which ensure safety if things are to go wrong. It's fail-safe, just like a four-way stop light at an intersection. If a system malfunctions, all four lanes go flashing red. That's the safe approach for highway traffic. That's a good way to put it on the railroad industry.
So this technology has a lot of good uses. In the meantime, we've got people out here suffering death on the rails, and these systems are available. It's not some pipe dream that they're trying to work out or debut. It's costly, but it works.
Page 508 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, Mr. Wise. I would like to say, for AMTRAK, I think you're hearing two things: one is that we have a technology today that is safe, and we're improving it with what I described in my testimony as nine-aspect cab signals, and speed enforcement. We've got an awful lot of capital already invested in the infrastructure of our railroad on the Northeast Corridor, and we're trying to build on that to produce the safest system with today's existing technology.
What you're hearing beyond that is a developmental effort going on in the industry, which is PTS, this technology is based on satellite technology and global positioning systems and in-track transponders. There are various systems that need an awful lot of testing before someone like me is comfortable that it's going to produce the same level of safety that we have with the cab signaling and speed control systems that we have on our railroad today.
Mr. WISE. Thank you.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you, Mr. Wise.
I have a 5:30 budget meeting, which I don't think anybody in this room really wants me to miss, so I'm going to—and I have a significant amount of questions to be submitted for the record, so I'm going to submit my questions to all of you.
I thank you for participating. We need to get the last panel on before I have to go to that 5:30 markup. Well, it's not actually a markup. I don't want to get anybody nervous. This is our first run-through of the proposal, so we're going to start doing some numbers crunching that may affect the interests at this table today.
Page 509 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. Could I find out how you're going to vote before I decide whether or not I want you to miss it.
[Laughter.]
Ms. MOLINARI. Mr. Wise just asked if he could find out how I was going to vote before he'd allow me to dismiss this panel.
Ms. MOLINARI. Our last panel is: Mr Dean Huntsinger, general manager of Rockwell Railroad Electronics, and Mr. William Matheson, technical director, Advanced Railway Systems, GE-Harris.
Thank you gentlemen both for being here and for your patience. I expect that it was a bit of a learning experience to sit in the back of the room while your name and your ideas were called into question and discussion so much during the course of the afternoon.
Mr. Huntsinger, let's start with you.
TESTIMONY OF DEAN P. HUNTSINGER, GENERAL MANAGER, ROCKWELL RAILROAD ELECTRONICS; AND WILLIAM L. MATHESON, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, ADVANCED RAILWAY SYSTEMS, GE-HARRIS RAILWAY ELECTRONICS
Mr. HUNTSINGER. Thank you.
Page 510 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Chairman Molinari and members of the committee, Rockwell Railroad Electronics appreciates the opportunity to discuss the availability of technology solutions to issues of rail safety.
The recent tragic accidents, especially the one in Silver Spring, have resulted in significant property losses and, unfortunately, the loss of a number of lives. These unfortunate accidents have drawn attention to the issue of rail safety and the availability of advanced train control devices or other equipment that might have prevented those accidents.
I am here today on behalf of Rockwell to inform the committee that we have this technology available. The ARES system demonstrated that safety improvements and operational efficiencies can be achieved.
Rockwell has over a decade of advanced train control experience. In the 1980's, we joined forces with the Burlington Northern Railroad where we developed and fielded an advanced control system that we called ARES. This was fielded in the Iron Range location of northern Minnesota on 250 miles of track. There were 17 locomotives equipped, three maintenance-of-way vehicles, a data system, and an advanced dispatch system.
In the development of the ARES system, the intelligence in the industry was leveraged. Draper Laboratory was contracted by the Burlington Northern to do the safety analysis. The Canadian Institute of Guided Ground Transport was contracted to do capacity studies to show what potential capacity benefits could be achieved from a system of this sort. The Illinois Institute of Technologies Research Institute was also contracted, and what they were tasked with was to build strategic and tactical level planning devices that could give the capacity that was identified by CIGGT.
Page 511 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
We also contracted with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, whose task was to study the ability to provide a vital token scheme, which would then give dynamic headway and dynamic block operation.
We also, during the development of ARES, tried to take advantage of what existed presently in the industry, and so we had considerably supplier participation. Union Switch and Signal, Harmon, Server Corporation, Pulse, and Avtech were participants in the ARES program.
In 1989, the tests in the Iron Range area were concluded, where the Rockwell and Burlington Northern teams judged the system ready for implementation.
The railroad, during that period of time, actually placed the system and service and land in that territory.
In the following 2 years, there was a considerable effort by the Burlington and Rockwell to market the system. There were many live demonstrations on trains in the Iron Range. There were several participants from the railroads at high levels, there were members of the NTSB and of the FRA who experienced such demonstrations.
Also, in 1992 there was an initiative between the Burlington Northern and Amtrak where they teamed together in an effort to see if they could get funding for AMTRAK to deploy this system on some AMTRAK territories. And during that effort there was a locomotive located here in Washington, D.C., at Union Station, where over 250 visitors viewed the system. A lot of those were Congressional staff.
Page 512 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
So there was a lot of activity at the time when ARES was developed, and there were participants who did, in fact, create the kinds of studies that were described earlier.
The study from Draper that I'd like to comment on was contracted by the Burlington, and the study at the time did show that safety factors as great as 100 could be achieved if you could eliminate the element of human error.
Rockwell can field a positive train control system. The experience, the software, and the system components developed during the years of the ARES program are available at Rockwell today. The technology required for positive train control does exist, and an non-vital overlay can be production-ready in 15 months.
Rockwell has a live demonstration available in Cedar Rapids Laboratories for any interested parties.
A positive train control system can provide the safety improvement needed to diminish human error. As I mentioned, Draper Laboratories' study showed 100 to 1 safety improvement can be achieved, and the fielding of the system can be implemented in a way where the present safety of the systems in place today is not at risk.
In the spirit of cooperation, Rockwell is willing to make the system open to the industry without any commercial restriction.
That is all.
Page 513 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you.
Mr. Matheson.
Mr. MATHESON. Madam Chairwoman and members of the committees, we at GE-Harris Railway Electronics appreciate the opportunity to share our views on the technology and current activities underway to enhance the safety of the national rail system.
As many of you know, General Electric and Harris formed the GE-Harris Railway Electronics Joint Venture last year to develop electronic systems to help manage the flow of traffic through the rail network.
Recently, the joint venture, in concert with Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, began developing a positive train separation system that we believe represents a significant cooperative step in this industry to enhance the safety performance of the railways.
Time does not permit me to go into a lengthy description of the system, so I've given you further details in the written testimony. I might point out that in that testimony there is analysis of a couple accidents, just to show you how a system, if totally deployed and proven, could address those, and those were two or three of many, many accidents that we analyzed to determine what were the most effective measures that could be taken to improve the safety.
The positive train separation system is an overlay on the existing system to assist in enforcing train separation based on monitoring the relative position of all trains in the network. Each train's precise speed, location, and proximity with other trains will be fed into a central command computer, which in turn issues non-overlapping movement authorities. The stopping distance for each train is continuously computed on-board, based on train consist speed, track geometry and the conditions.
Page 514 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
If a train is in danger of violating movement or speed authority, computers on the respective locomotives will alert the crew with the message on their on-board display screen. If the crew does not take prompt action, the system will automatically apply the brakes, thereby slowing the train and stopping it.
A pilot PTS system is scheduled to be installed this summer on an 800-mile stretch of track in Oregon and Washington, which you can see on the diagram over there. This region was chosen because it includes track operated by both railroads and includes all types of existing signaling systems.
After it is installed, the system will undergo extensive testing and analysis. The development and upcoming testing of this system is one example of the cooperation among many industry organizations to improve the safety and increase the productivity on America's railroads.
In this situation, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific are combining their resources to demonstrate inter-operability of PTS on tracks using different operating rules and communication systems. Because the communications-based signaling system requires some changes to existing rules, the FRA has actively participated in reviewing the PTS system design, and because available frequency spectrum is essential to implement any communications-based system, the Institute for Telecommunication Science in Boulder has participated in the planning.
In addition to the PTS project I mentioned, many organizations are independently initiating programs to advance this technology. For example, UP has commissioned a detailed traffic flow and economic analysis of PTS to determine the potential business advantages that could underwrite much of the deployment cost.
Page 515 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Because there is potential for using PTS to efficiently mix high-speed passenger traffic and freight traffic on the same corridor, FRA and Washington State DOT have commissioned a detailed model of PTS and its derivative technologies, as well as over-the-road tests of AMTRAK trains.
FRA has also actively sponsored inter-operability working groups for PTS technology, and even commissioned the Institute of Telecommunications Science to determine the spectral needs for full-scale deployment of the technology.
Finally, in support of the critical need to generate accurate position reports that depend on differential GPS, the Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers and FRA have coordinated the deployment of an additional Coast Guard DGPS facility in the test corridor.
We at GE-Harris are obviously optimistic about the potential safety and productivity advantages of this new technology, as evidenced by our significant investment. Nevertheless, we recognize that the cost of the system is not yet determined and the technology is not yet fully tested.
We believe that efforts to mandate either nation-wide deployment of existing technology or the deployment of an unproven system are both inappropriate.
The marketplace is working, as evidenced by the support from private industry, for the PTS system. I might point out that when we were talking earlier on the first panel about leveraging the most out of the limited budget that's available in FRA, certainly combining the resources of industry and FRA, the Government, is one way to do that.
Page 516 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Moreover, our clients believe that strong economic benefits may exist from the next generation of this technology, thereby providing further incentive for its implementation.
Instead, we strongly recommend that any action be proactive and promote the further development of the technology. Examples of such action could include the nationwide deployment of DGPS station and the allocation of sufficient radio spectrum to implement the necessary communication linkages.
I might point out that, being a communications-based system, the demand on the frequency allocation is going to increase at the very same time when there is significant pressure on the part of and by FCC to reduce the spectrum that's been allocated to the railroads, so it's very important that the results of the study that Boulder is doing be looked at in this regard.
With that, let me thank you for inviting me here and the time to express our views.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you, gentlemen, both.
First of all, Mr. Huntsinger, let me get from you a definition. What is a ''non-vital overlay''?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. As was described earlier by Mr. Thelen, when you get a vital solution, then it's one that's basically depended on for all aspects. When we say a ''non-vital overlay,'' we talk about using the present safety system that's deployed as the primary means for safety in train control, and then what you do is then implement in a more cost-effective fashion than you would if you made it vital, an overlay scheme that would basically watch over the operator to see that he didn't violate his authorities or his speed limits. It's a secondary system.
Page 517 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you.
I know that panel after panel has addressed this, but why is there such a vast discrepancy between when the system could be made available?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. I think one of the lessons we learned, Rockwell did, during the development of the ARES program is that we reached for a full-end solution where you could then effectively convert it to a vital answer and replace the system that's in place today.
There was a viewpoint at the time that said if you could achieve—whether the number is 100 to 1, which was debated today—or not, you could achieve whatever that number is, and then coming short of that target was not acceptable.
I think some of the differences in philosophy here is we're proposing something that's simpler than what's going forward, as was described here by Bill, and that would achieve some reasonable percentage of the available safety quickly, and at a reduced cost, and that should have a migration path to then move that forward to the level of implementation that was just described by Mr. Matheson.
Ms. MOLINARI. And you've discussed this with FRA?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. We haven't in the recent timeframe. We did during the time where Jolene held her round table discussions.
Page 518 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Ms. MOLINARI. So ostensibly then the objections that FRA enunciated today would also hold to what you've presented before us?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. I think so.
Ms. MOLINARI. OK.
Mr. Wise?
Mr. WISE. Mr. Huntsinger, with some trepidation I ask this question, because I'm a lay person and the—I'm afraid I'm going to get as technical an answer as we got earlier, which is not to discredit the previous respondent. The AAR respondent says that—I'm going to put it in layperson's terms—that you're not right on the 100 to 1 statement that you made, and they questioned that.
You heard the response. Would you like to deal with that?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. Perhaps there is information that's more recent, because they've contracted Mr. Weinstein through Draper Laboratory, from when the report was published. I'm simply relating the results of the findings in the study that Draper Laboratory put together at the time we did the ARES program.
Mr. WISE. Have you all had any contact on this, you and Mr. Thelen?
Page 519 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. HUNTSINGER. We have not.
Mr. WISE. Is it likely that you're going to?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. Yes. It's quite likely.
Mr. WISE. I would hope so. I mean, I think that's a major thing.
The second question I would ask is——
Mr. HUNTSINGER. If the new number was 50 to 1——
Mr. WISE. I'm going to get to that part, because I'm going to ask you to define what that means. What is 100 to 1? Are we talking 99 percent less accidents? Are we talking in damage measured by dollars? What exactly—when that statement was made in your testimony, what does that mean?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. The terms that that was framed in at the time was that those accidents that were a result of human error, not a result of other external factors, could be reduced by a factor of 100. So if you didn't have that capability in place, then you would have 100 accidents versus having that capability in place, then which you would have if you had the same set of circumstances as one accident.
Page 520 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. I know the Chair got that. I'm still swimming a little.
Mr. HUNTSINGER. Let me try again. If, in fact, with the signal system in place today, if an operator of the train for some reason gets distracted and runs the signal, then he is subjected to an accident. It may not occur because the circumstances may not be there.
If you have an overlay process on top of it, he's not going to run that signal, even if he is distracted. The system will react and stop that so it doesn't put the train at risk for an accident.
Mr. WISE. OK. Mr. Matheson, I appreciate what you were saying about the market moving forward, and you echoed what many others said about not mandating, but there is also the concern that I have, which is—I'm not a great fan of mandates either, but I am concerned that it's possible to keep working, exploring, looking to the future, looking to the future, and meanwhile we're ignoring the present and not installing that which we could to provide some level of safety, if not the ideal that you want to get to eventually. Would you comment on that?
Mr. MATHESON. Yes. I think it is very appropriate to set some sort of a time, a very concrete time, to call the question, at which time—perhaps when the question is called, say 2 years from now when PTS test data is available, and at that point in time to formulate what should be either the mandate or the regulations that need to be passed.
Page 521 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
The principal problem with mandating an approach when you're at this stage of the development is that, in fact, you don't really know what the conclusion is. I showed you, in my handout, some accidents. Obviously, those could not have been prevented since the system does not get exist. We don't know for a fact that we will be able to prevent those types of accidents, but all our analysis today indicates we will, and obviously we wouldn't be investing, nor would our clients, if we weren't fairly confident what the result is.
But, nonetheless, the system and its characteristics are not fully proven as yet. It is a very complex system. There are many lines of software code involved.
And to just comment a little bit about what Mr. Huntsinger said, the system that we have, the reason it's so complex is that we took about 9 months to do nothing but analyze every permutation and combination of traffic flow—what kinds of trains and what kind of movements over all types of switches, all types of sidings, all types of turn-outs—under every imaginable position, and we used a very disciplined process to do that.
The net result of that is that we determined that there were many, many permutations and combinations of train movements over different types of control systems, and what we've attempted to do is to plug every one of those holes with the system, and, as a result, the system is quite complex.
To mandate it before it is proven I think is premature, even though we have a—obviously we have a very high confidence it will work; otherwise, neither ourselves nor our clients would have invested and continue to invest the sort of money in it that they're doing.
Page 522 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. WISE. As you said, at some point you've got to call the question, and I think my time just got called. But I appreciate, Mr. Matheson, your and Mr. Huntsinger's testimony.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you, Mr. Wise.
We'd like to acknowledge Mr. McHale from Pennsylvania. I don't know if you have any questions for our witnesses.
Mr. MCHALE. Madam Chair, thank you very much. Just two quick questions.
I apologize, gentlemen. I was at a conflicting meeting of the National Security Committee and just arrived here a moment ago, so if I take you over ground that you've already covered, I offer to you in advance my apology.
Mr. Huntsinger, you mentioned in your testimony how global positioning systems, data communication, and locomotive condition monitoring can significantly enhance the efficiency of railroad operations. Can you describe the types of efficiencies railroads can gain through this process? And do you have any estimates of the dollar savings railroads can expect from installing this technology?
Then, as a follow-up to that, Mr. Matheson, do you have any estimates as to the business benefits of this technology?
Page 523 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Gentlemen?
Mr. HUNTSINGER. Yes, we have.
First off, I would say that for a system like PTC there were extensive benefit analyses that were conducted by the Burlington Northern Railroad. If you take the aspects of those analyses, you'll find that probably the key ingredients were capacity, asset utilization, and then the services they thought they could better provide to their customers.
The data systems being deployed today have economic benefit to the railroads. The Burlington Northern and the UP both are putting data systems in for business purposes in areas outside of this, so there are reasons today for economic value where pieces of the system already are being fielded.
The newer locomotives today are equipped with integrated cab electronics, both on the General Motors and on the GE-style locomotives. They provide an economic benefit of their own to the new locomotives, but they also provide a computing and a display engine where the cost to implement things like PTC could be reduced in the future.
Mr. MCHALE. Mr. Matheson?
Mr. MATHESON. We have not conducted an extensive analysis of a really complex railroad such as the Union Pacific, and that is one of the reasons they have funded us to build a very detailed computer model of this operation, and the purpose of that is to quantitatively define precisely what the business benefits would be.
Page 524 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. MCHALE. You say that funding is coming from Union Pacific?
Mr. MATHESON. That's correct.
Mr. MCHALE. I'd insert parenthetically in the record, that's a major corporation that I'm pleased is headquartered in my District.
[Laughter.]
Mr. MCHALE. I tried to do that with a straight face. I didn't succeed.
Mr. MATHESON. What we have done is conducted some studies on some smaller railroads, one that hauls coal and the other one that hauls iron. One is located in Canada and the other in Australia.
It is not fair to draw a direct comparison between this and some of the operation that's present on the major class one railroads, but it does give you sort of an insight into what some of the numbers might be.
In the case of those railroads, we were able to improve asset utilization and throughput close to 30 percent, and the on-time arrival of the trains we were able to improve almost 10 to 1, so it was a very, very significant improvement.
Page 525 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
I might add that that's an almost ideal situation, though, when you're operating with unit trains. It's a much simpler situation than when you have a complex mix of inter-modal traffic, the bulk traffic, and then the manifest traffic, and now with the passenger traffic also on top of that.
In parallel with that study we're doing for Union Pacific, we're doing a study that's funded by FRA very much like that in the Pacific northwest to see what would happen if you put in high-speed passenger trains on the same corridor, and using this technology to optimally inter-weave the high-speed train with the slower freight trains with minimum disruption to the freight traffic or the passenger traffic.
Again, we are optimistic about the outcome of that, but until that work is finished later this summer, we will not have the quantitative numbers to tell you asset utilization went up so many points and the on-time performance and the effect of the passenger train and so on.
Mr. MCHALE. Despite the fact that your study involved ideal conditions, those are, nonetheless, very impressive numbers.
Mr. Huntsinger, you mentioned that the expanded event recorder function in your system provides significantly more information for purposes of accident investigations. Can you give examples of the types of additional information this event recorder provides, explaining it to somebody who went to one of the—I went to one of the finest engineering schools in the country where I majored in government, so if you could explain it in terms that even I might understand, I'd appreciate it.
Page 526 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4
Mr. HUNTSINGER. The information available on the newer locomotives is more readily accessible than it was in the past. The new locomotives have microprocessor systems on board that run the engineers. They have microprocessors on board that deal with the electronic air brakes, etc. So the event recording device that's integrated into those electronic systems now has information available to it to record that was not available in a locomotive of the past.
Mr. MCHALE. Gentlemen, I thank you very much. Madam Chair, thank you.
Ms. MOLINARI. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your input.
To all our witnesses today, we thank you.
The record, of course, will be kept open for the next 30 days so that we can exchange those questions and answers as we've related to the witnesses.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 5:18 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned, to reconvene subject to the call of their respective Chairs.]
[Insert here.]
Page 527 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 4 Of 4