Major train accidents occurring earlier this year have prompted Congress to readdress the issue of passenger rail safety.
Funding for Amtrak has long been controversial, with many Republicans wanting to privatize the system and many Democrats arguing that the United States has fallen behind other countries, such as Germany and Japan, by not making a greater investment in rail travel.
The last time Congress reauthorized funding for Amtrak was through passage of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required the Nation’s busiest railroad operators to implement a technology called positive train control (PTC) and to have it in place by 2015. This technology enables railroads to use GPS to stop or slow trains in cases of driver emergencies, switches left in the wrong position, hijacking, natural disasters, or human error. The Act set standards for PTC implementation but allowed the railroads to decide how they wanted to meet them.
Budget constraints, still evolving technology, and other factors have complicated railroads’ efforts to meet the 2015 PTC deadline, however. Amtrak, which has been chronically strapped for funds, has been working to put in place its Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System technology but has not yet completed the installation.
On March 26, the Senate Commerce , Science, and Transportation Committee approved the Rail Safety and Positive Train Control Extension Act (S. 650), sponsored by Senator Roy Blount (MO-R). The bill would extend the PTC deadline until the end of 2020. It would also allow the Department of Transportation to extend the deadline for two more years on a case-by-case basis if warranted by safety or operational risk.
In light of the Amtrak crash that occurred in Philadelphia in May, however, committee members are rethinking the five-year deadline extension, and on June 10, held a hearing titled “Passenger Rail Safety: Accident Prevention and Ongoing Efforts to Implement Train Control Technology.” Witnesses testified about the capabilities and limitations of train control technologies, the status of their installation, and challenges in meeting the statutory deadline.
A major issue is that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been slow to grant the railroads sufficient access to the wireless airwaves (spectrum rights) required to activate PTC systems. At the Senate hearing, a spokesperson for the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau said that the agency has been in talks with Amtrak officials and is committed to helping finding the additional spectrum the rail service needs.
For more background on passenger rail, see the April 2011 issue of Congressional Digest on “High-Speed Rail,” the September 2012 issue on “Transportation Infrastructure Investment,” and the December 2001 issue on “Train Travel in America.”
