In  recent years, a number of serious accidents raised concerns about the  level of safety in the railroad industry. For example, as you are aware, in  2005, a train collision in Graniteville, South Carolina, resulted in the  evacuation of 5,400 people, 292 injuries, and 9 deaths. FRA Has Made Progress in Targeting Its Oversight Efforts on the Basis of Risk

In planning its safety oversight, FRA focuses its efforts on the highest  priority risks related to train accidents through a number of initiatives. FRA’s May 2005 National Rail Safety Action Plan provides a reasonable  framework for the agency’s efforts to target its oversight at the highest  priority risks. FRA  has also developed a new approach for planning its inspections, based on  greater use of its accident and inspection data. While these initiatives are  promising, it is too early to assess their impact. Recent FRA initiatives to reduce  accidents caused by human factors include    proposed regulations aimed at reducing the most common causes of these  accidents, such as improper positioning of track switches;    a 5-year pilot project to establish a confidential voluntary system for  reporting and learning from close call incidents;   a study to develop a fatigue model that could be used by railroads to  improve train crew scheduling practices and prevent worker fatigue; and   a proposed pilot project to establish voluntary risk reduction programs at  participating railroad worksites to help reduce human factor accidents, as  well as other types of accidents. FRA Relies Primarily on Direct Inspections to Identify Safety Problems and Does Not Oversee Railroads’ Management of Safety Risks

In carrying out its safety oversight, FRA identifies a range of safety  problems on railroad systems mainly through routine inspections to  determine whether operations, track, and equipment are in compliance  with safety standards. FRA’s inspections do not attempt to determine how  well railroads are managing safety risks throughout their systems. APTA,  PHMSA, and Transport Canada have implemented approaches to oversee  the management of safety risks by U.S. commuter railroads, U.S. pipelines,  and Canadian railroads, respectively. 2.) 3.) However, because the number of FRA and state inspectors is  small relative to the size of railroad operations, FRA inspections can cover  only a very small proportion of railroad operations (0.2 percent). As a result, we did not recommend in our recent report that  FRA adopt an approach for overseeing railroads’ management of safety  risks. However, its ability to make informed decisions about its inspection and  enforcement programs is limited because it lacks measures of the  intermediate outcomes, or direct results, of these programs that would  show how they are contributing toward the end outcomes, or ultimate  safety improvements, that the agency seeks to achieve. Furthermore, FRA  has not evaluated the effectiveness of its enforcement approach. FRA also  uses various other measures to manage its oversight efforts, such as  numbers of inspections performed and enforcement actions taken. While FRA has developed a range of goals and measures related to its  oversight of railroad safety, it lacks measures of the desired intermediate  outcomes, or direct results, of its inspection and enforcement efforts—the  correction of identified safety problems and improvements in compliance. In the report we issued in January, we recommended that FRA (1) develop  and implement measures of the direct results of its inspection and  enforcement programs and (2) evaluate the agency’s enforcement program  to provide further information on its results, the need for additional data  to measure and assess these results, and the need for any changes in this  program to improve performance. The department stated  that FRA lacks the resources to carry out our second recommendation but  will consider requesting such resources for fiscal year 2009.
Why GAO Did This Study

Although the overall safety record in the railroad industry, as measured by the number of train accidents per million miles traveled, has improved markedly since 1980, there has been little sustained improvement over the past decade. Serious accidents resulting in injuries and deaths continue to occur, such as one in Graniteville, South Carolina, in 2005 that resulted in 9 deaths and 292 injuries. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) develops safety standards and inspects and enforces railroads' compliance with these standards. On January 26, 2007, GAO reported on FRA's overall safety oversight strategy. (See GAO-07-149 .) The report discussed how FRA (1) focuses its efforts on the highest priority risks related to train accidents in planning its oversight, (2) identifies safety problems on railroad systems in carrying out its oversight, and (3) assesses the impact of its oversight efforts on safety. GAO recommended that FRA (1) put into place measures of the results of its inspection and enforcement programs and (2) evaluate its enforcement program. In its response, the Department of Transportation stated that FRA agreed to develop such measures and would consider requesting additional resources to conduct an evaluation of its enforcement program. This statement is based on GAO's recent report.

What GAO Found

In planning its safety oversight, FRA is focusing its efforts on the highest priority risks related to train accidents through initiatives aimed at addressing their main causes--human behaviors and defective track--as well as through improvements in its inspection planning approach. FRA's May 2005 National Rail Safety Action Plan, the agency's overall strategy for targeting its oversight at the greatest risks, provides a reasonable framework for guiding these efforts. FRA's initiatives to address the most common causes of accidents are promising, although the success of many of them will depend on voluntary actions by the railroads. In addition, under the action plan, FRA has adopted a new inspection planning approach in which inspectors focus their efforts on locations that data-driven models indicate are most likely to have safety problems. In carrying out its safety oversight, FRA identifies a range of safety problems on railroad systems mainly by determining whether operating practices, track, and equipment are in compliance with minimum safety standards. However, FRA is able to inspect only about 0.2 percent of railroads' operations each year, and its inspections do not examine how railroads are managing safety risks throughout their systems that could lead to accidents. Such an approach, as a supplement to traditional compliance inspections, is used in the oversight of U.S. commuter railroads and pipelines and of Canadian railroads. GAO did not recommend that FRA adopt this approach because the agency's various initiatives to reduce the train accident rate have not yet had time to demonstrate their effects on safety. FRA uses a range of goals and measures to assess the impact of its oversight, such as (1) goals to target its inspection and enforcement programs at reducing various types of railroad accidents and (2) related measures, such as rates of track-caused accidents, to monitor its progress. However, FRA's ability to make informed decisions about these programs is limited because it lacks measures of their direct results, such as the correction of identified safety problems. Furthermore, FRA has not evaluated the effectiveness of its enforcement program.