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Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide (2009)

Chapter: Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Page 25
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation Policy and Strategy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14220.
×
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Introduction The evolution of a shared-track project from concept to an operating system is likely to be tedious and extended. Planners should anticipate as much as 6 to 10 years from start to finish, with a potential for unanticipated delays. The way forward is littered with seemingly burden- some requirements, extended procedural steps, and the possibility of failure. The research chal- lenge was to identify a series of necessary and sufficient steps, along with effective actions, to provide a reasonable certitude of project fruition. This guide should enable originators to navigate the process to advance a proposed shared- track system, to better direct their efforts and to address the inherent ambiguities common to many public/private sector, multi-party endeavors involving bureaucracies and competing demands for limited resources. Part II explains the key policy and strategic factors essential to achieve the sharing of track by a freight operator and a passenger operator using light passenger rail cars. These are broadly cat- egorized as “Institutional Issues”; a complex panoply of policy, organization, administration, reg- ulatory, liability, access, private, public, and other stakeholder perspectives, funding and busi- ness considerations. Coordination and integration of these myriad aspects is critical to success. A strong oversight function and negotiation skills are essential. Why Share Track? A convincing answer to this fundamental question is essential. The strongest reason for shared-track occurs in situations where a transit need that would go otherwise unmet is made possible by track-sharing. In cases where conventional solutions might be acceptable, it is almost always cheaper and faster to start a commuter rail service, and from a regulatory point of view less burdensome to construct a stand-alone light rail system. The transit needs that require shared-track tend to fall into three distinct categories or combinations of these categories: 1. The need to expand the reach of an existing light-rail system by using radial railroad rights- of-way, but the existing freight operation cannot be completely moved into the night-time nor abandoned. 2. A transit or planning agency wants to use an existing radial or conveniently linked branch line connection, but also wants to fulfill a downtown distribution function by traveling on city streets to reach major downtown destinations not proximate to the railroad terminal. 17 C H A P T E R 2 Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation—Policy and Strategy

3. A transit or planning agency wants to use an existing radial or conveniently linked branch line connection, where the right-of-way has been ‘hemmed in’ by development and cannot support more tracks than absolutely necessary for a shared freight and light passenger rail service plan. In each case, neither commuter rail nor a stand alone light rail system would be entirely sat- isfactory. A commuter rail operation would result in lower ridership, in unattractive end-to-end transfers, or noise and vibration impacts in the downtown or is simply physically unsuitable for the alignment. A stand-alone light rail system would result in duplicative facilities and thus much higher capital costs, or a poor at-grade alignment choice. There is then a very real possibility that the initial ridership would not justify any construction. Shared-track represents projects of opportunity where a potential transit corridor need occurs along a strategically located, active rail freight branch line. In those cases track sharing offers many advantages over other solutions by: providing interoperability with existing light rail sys- tems; street running to improve proximity to demand generators and contribute to economic revitalization in blighted areas; reducing negative environmental impacts and construction costs; preserving economically important branch line freight service; and offering an intermediate level-of-investment between a stand-alone light rail system and a commuter rail alternative. Creating a Strategic Foundation Track sharing between short or branch line trains and light passenger rail cars serves a niche market between commuter rail and a stand-alone light rail system. Viable operations in North America typically entail allowing a small number of branch line freight trains to operate over a line that is converted for medium-frequency light passenger rail use at limited speeds. To ascer- tain whether shared-track is the ideal or preferred solution, it is necessary to develop effective strategies that work within the confines of existing policy: • Identifies these “projects of opportunity” • Quantifies their costs and benefits • Provides examples of successful projects • Describes a business model and defining a business case • Discusses the safety case • Reviews effective technologies • Examines the role of regulatory agencies The institutional issues are the most complex, but the first step is development of a business model to help guide the approach. The Business Model The research objective clearly expressed the need to prepare a business case and identify the business model for shared-track. The model is the more strategic facet of the two and forms the skeleton of the business case. It is therefore addressed first. The business case is the tactical con- stituent that is applied to a specific situation to analyze and evaluate factors that shape the eco- nomic, technical, and operational decisions. A business model is a guide to the conversion of technology to economic value, and is vital to advancing the concept of shared use: A business model is a conceptual tool that contains a set of elements and their relationships to express the business logic of a specific firm or service. It describes the value of a company to its customers and of the architecture of the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing, and delivering this value and integrating financial and institutional resources to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams. 18 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner’s Guide

While the business model for public agencies and the private sector will differ, the fundamental principle prevails. The public sector now may have to contend with more stakeholders and play- ers. Overall, there may be more competing interests in the public domain, and financial consider- ations may not be the primary driver in resolving these rival objectives. A model can facilitate an agency’s pursuit of the shared-track concept by laying out the framework for a business case. Business Model Structure The emerging American business model for concurrent shared-track physical asset shares many elements with the current American shared-track state of practice under temporal sepa- ration, but differs in detail to accommodate the needed changes from concurrent operation. The key differences lie in the areas of Command and Control, track access, liability, operating rules, employee training, and emergency recovery. • The transit agency should plan to install a train control system, including train-stop apparatus on-board freight locomotives if deemed necessary. That eliminates the potential for collision between transit and freight trains sharing the same tracks. • For track access, the transit agency must develop a capability for managing potential schedule conflicts, both for planning purposes and in real time. This may entail a schedule that reserves spare freight train slots within its operating schedules. • For liability, the transit agency may assume more liability than in a temporally-separated regime (assignment of fault can be complex in a concurrent operating environment). • The transit agency can expect to adopt operating rules of a railroad heritage, even though transit operators are not FRA certified engineers. The transit agency will be responsible for promul- gation of some freight related rules. • In terms of employee training, some cross-training would be expected to ensure smooth inter- face between freight train crews, their transit counterparts, and the transit agency dispatcher. • The freight railroad and transit operator need a plan for emergency recovery of disabled freight equipment on a timely basis, so that transit service is not disrupted by a freight train malfunc- tion, and vice versa. Presently, the number of cases where conventional railroad rolling stock and light passenger rail cars share tracks is limited; public passenger transportation and private freight operations do share track. The recommended business model borrows heavily from the current practices in concurrent shared-track operations for both light passenger rail cars and conventional commuter rail. While there is no single business model for shared-track operations, some common features and attributes exist for nearly all shared-track operators. 1. The transit authority generally purchases, controls, improves, maintains, and dispatches the infrastructure. Transit agency pays all related costs. 2. The freight railroad selling the low-density line retains “perpetual and exclusive” freight trackage rights for an agreed per-use fee. 3. Transit agency assumes all risks, liabilities, and insurance requirements over-and-above the old status quo, including the risks to freight operations due to presence of passengers. 4. The transit agency uses various financing mechanisms for infrastructure improvements that are unavailable to the freight operator. 5. The transit agency assumes responsibility for accident and incident management, maintain- ing operating rules, and training for transit agency staff. 6. The freight railroad must retrieve inoperative freight rolling stock (should it fail) and train their employees on transit territory. 7. Transit agency works to avoid legal and administrative classification as a railroad for the pur- poses of employment laws, to avoid higher labor expenses and related costs. Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation—Policy and Strategy 19

8. Where all freight operations can be shifted into the overnight period, a temporal separation approach to shared operations is adopted; where the volume of freight service, the needs of freight customers or the sensibilities of neighboring residents prevents overnight freight oper- ation, an investment in train control technology that features “fail-safe train separation” is required to ensure that human failure does not result in a collision between a light passenger car and heavier freight rolling stock. A wide variety of technologies are available to provide this extra margin of safety. Strategic elements of the business model should be quantified as parameters for a project spe- cific business case. Table 3 displays a checklist of key issues and suggested resolutions that have previously shown to be acceptable to both the transit agency and the railroad. The Business Case A business case is a tool that supports planning and decision making, including major investment decisions. Business cases are generally designed to answer the question: what will be the financial consequences of each choice among multiple options? A good business case shows expected economic consequences of the decision over time and includes the rationale for quantifying benefits and costs. Critical success factors and significant risks are discussed. The case also describes the overall impact of a proposal in terms that can be understood by policy makers. Business cases can range from the comprehensive and highly structured, as required by for- mal project management methodologies, to the informal and brief. Information included in a formal business case could be the background of the project, expected business benefits, options considered (with reasons for rejecting or carrying forward each option), the expected costs of the 20 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner’s Guide Table 3. Recommended business model parameters for shared track. Business Issue Transit Agency Freight Railroad Track Ownership Purchases, improves, and assumes control Sells and relinquishes control Track Maintenance Pays all costs and defines standards subject to FRA regulation; define limits of agency ownership Identifies needs for continued freight service; define limits of freight ownership Track Access Manages freight and passenger schedule interactions Perpetual and exclusive trackage rights, subject to per-use fee Liability Assumes all risks over and above the old status quo Provides suitable insurance for own employees and operations Capital Financing Uses traditional public transit financing mechanisms Pays for freight-specific improvements on an incremental basis Incident Management Leads the incident site and recovery effort Assists as necessary if freight equipment is involved Operating Rules Maintains railroad-like rules for both freight and passenger operations Coordinates with transit agency and FRA to identify rules necessary to preserve and operate freight service Employee Training Trains transit employees and provides cross-training where needed Trains freight employees for operation on transit territory Emergency Recovery Retrieves disabled passenger equipment and evacuate passengers Retrieves disabled freight equipment so that transit service can resume Labor Laws Avoids rail labor laws Operates under railroad labor laws Command and Control Combined Command-and-Control system with either temporal separation or “fail-safe train separation”

project, a gap analysis, and the expected risks. Consideration also should be given to the option of doing nothing, including the costs and risks of inaction. The result of a review may be justifi- cation, termination, or amendment of the project. Using a good business case in a complex environment requires assumptions, arbitrary judgments, and the development of new data—new information unique to the particular undertaking— that goes beyond existing budgets and business plans to address less tangible or more ambigu- ous issues. Shared-Track—A Practical Business Case Structure There is a strong national business case for shared-track operations. There are valuable and cost-effective “projects of opportunity” available in some suburbs and medium to high-density cities in the United States. Consequently, an appropriate national business case leading to adop- tion of a routine method and standardized American approach to concurrent shared-track is useful. The practical business case for shared-track operations using non-FRA-compliant public tran- sit rail vehicles and conventional railroad equipment identifies the costs and benefits to the freight railroad, public transit agency, and others associated with establishing new or enhanced rail transit service and regional goods movement. The business case for a shared-track system generally requires three separate components. • Presence of appropriate business drivers suggesting a shared-track solution. • Agreement among three major classes of stakeholders that benefits are fairly shared and costs equitably apportioned, producing a win-win-win scenario. • Site-specific alternatives analysis demonstrating best economic return-on-investment for a shared-track approach. The process for concurrent shared-track operations starts with negotiation between a pub- lic transit agency and a private freight railroad to share the target freight line for a combination of transit and freight applications. Conditions likely to lead planners to a shared-track solution include: 1. A suitable route, origin-destination linkages, and traffic level on the freight branch line; 2. A desire for a start-up transit service; 3. A desire for sections of street-running or a core section shared with an existing light-rail system; 4. A paucity of good parallel alternatives; constrained right-of-way width; and 5. A willingness to convey the rail right-of-way to a public entity. Shared-track projects are feasible once these conditions are met. Valuable and cost-effective projects of opportunity are available in many of the larger urban and suburban areas in the United States. There are three main groups of stakeholders in any shared-track project. • The freight branch line owner will be concerned about operating costs, freight service quality, ease of operations, perpetual and exclusive rights of access, and safety. • The transit agency will be concerned about service quality, ease of operations and manage- ment, and capital and operating costs. • The main concerns of the government regulators and sponsors are to ensure safety and cost- effectiveness. Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation—Policy and Strategy 21

Within the framework of the business model, it is clearly possible to balance the interests of all stakeholders to produce a win-win-win situation among the stakeholders. Three of the four key business case issues are: • Key business drivers: these prerequisites should be met; • National business case: the standardized “American approach to concurrent shared-track” should be understood and accepted by federal authorities; and • Stakeholder analysis: all must reach agreement on cost and benefit sharing to produce a “win- win-win” scenario. Where the first three conditions are present, the fourth and final step is to determine whether shared-track makes sense for a specific site or proposed operation by explicitly enumerating all of the costs and benefits trade-offs in an alternatives analysis. The four main classes of possible conceptual alternatives are: 1. Non-rail alternatives; 2. Shared-corridor options with minimum freight-passenger interactions (e.g., Parallel track operations); 3. Compliant commuter rail alternatives; and 4. Temporally-separated or concurrent operating regimes in shared-track scenarios. When contemplating a new shared-track operation, whether it is a conversion of an existing low-density branch line freight railroad, or a ‘concurrent upgrade’ to an existing temporally sep- arated line, building the business case typically follows the format of an alternatives analysis that considers other options to satisfy the business needs. Typically a four-step process is employed. 1. Identify service needs; 2. Define alternatives; 3. Choose shared-track operating regime; and 4. Analyze cost effectiveness. All four steps are necessary to form a complete practical business case for a specific shared- track proposal. Practitioners wishing to build a business case for a concurrent operation should carefully study the difference in costs and benefits between the temporally separated and the con- current alternatives. One point common to any business case is that freight operator must con- cur with the plan. Since they become tenants and the transit operator becomes the host, the nature of that relationship will be reflected in the business case. Planners should be aware that although the freight operation benefits from improved infrastruc- ture and technology, the business case might not be as strong. Freight adapts more slowly because costs have to show a return on investment. Freight operators also may be reluctant to adopt new technology because of its limited benefit to them and unanticipated interoperability issues. The next section provides a template that will guide the user through specific steps. A unique practical business case can be built by substituting the appropriate geography and local variables. However, while the business case is necessary to justify a project, it is not sufficient. The safety case also must be made. The team’s research indicates that shared-track methods may reduce the capital costs to develop a new rail transit system by 40% to 66% when compared to a new separate light rail system. Con- current shared-track light rail operations provide a mechanism to offer a higher level of service than commuter rail, while keeping the capital costs affordable and enhancing urban freight rail service. Indeed, there are a number of operating examples (San Diego Trolley, NJ Transit River LINE, and Newark City Subway, Utah TRAX) of substantial shared-track in North America where stakeholders have been able to reach agreement and the transit systems are in operation. 22 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner’s Guide

The Safety Case To advance the business case, the safety stakeholders must be satisfied. The business case iden- tifies stakeholders with the most significant impacts on a project and then puts in place a win- win-win scenario. Simultaneously planners are guiding the resolution of various institutional, operational and technical issues. However, safety regulators can be the “deal breakers” for a planned project. Even if the freight operator, transit operator, and state and local interest groups and authorities are “on-board” and the purchase, liability, and track access agreements are com- pleted, progress is not guaranteed. The FRA must be convinced that the project fulfills its safety requirements. Any shared-track project will require an FRA Waiver Petition, and invite the scrutiny of both the FRA and State Safety Oversight Organization. FRA—Obtaining a Federal Waiver Typically, a project involving concurrent operation of light passenger rail cars and conventional railroad trains triggers the need for a federal waiver due to the presence of cars that do not conform to full federal crashworthiness standards for passenger-carrying equipment. A waiver petition details specific conditions that render federal requirements inapplicable and describes alternate means of providing equivalent safety. The information in a waiver application typically includes: • Description of the proposed shared-track operation on the general system of railroads; • Proposed light passenger rail car characteristics; • Proposed application of alternate technologies for signals, communications, train control, and other elements of the infrastructure; • Required deviation from federal requirements for vehicle design, train control system, oper- ating rules, practices, documentation, training, and maintenance procedures; and • Explanation why the deviations do not compromise the level of safety, and how equivalent safety is achieved. In pursuing a waiver, the agency examines each regulation and compares it to project design to ascertain the extent of compliance. The FRA will review plans and documents, inspect facili- ties, and interview technical, operating, and management staff as part of the approval process. All project elements that deviate from the current regulations must be addressed. If the FRA Office of Safety is satisfied, then a conditional waiver is granted, allowing operation of the pro- posed system. Approval is likely to be subject to specified terms and conditions, and is granted for a fixed term. There are two levels of federal involvement. The FRA Office of Safety headquarters is in Wash- ington, D.C., where the Safety Board convenes with respect to waiver petitions. The second is regional FRA offices, staffed by local experts and specialist who meet directly with project par- ticipants (designers, operators, agency managers), to review plans, and inspect facilities. Their reports are forwarded to the FRA Office of Safety and influence the Safety Board’s review. Since the FRA plays such a dominant role in the project’s implementation, initiators are encouraged to engage the agency early in the planning stage and keep local and headquarters rep- resentatives apprised of plans, developments or changes. It is advisable to maintain a dialogue between train control system designers and appropriate Federal officials from concept and design throughout testing and startup. Role of the Designated State Safety Organization Rail transit projects generally come under the jurisdiction of the state agency responsible for State Safety Oversight (SSO). The state is ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of the rail Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation—Policy and Strategy 23

transit system. As with conventional transit projects, the SSO usually requires a project System Safety Program Plan (SSPP) and safety certification. Typically Federal waiver approval will be contingent upon the approval of the SSPP by the SSO. The likely model of state safety oversight of shared-track operations should be basically iden- tical to the framework for conventional rail transit projects. The difference is a Federal waiver is required to operate under shared-track conditions. Federal regulators rely on state oversight for certain matters and vice versa. It is useful to dis- tinguish those elements that fall within FRA or FTA purview and those reserved for the SSO. Research indicates that the federal authorities provide oversight for issues directly related to track-sharing with the general system of railroads, i.e., all of the issues explicitly mentioned in the waiver request. The SSO should furnish safety supervision in all areas not covered by the con- tents of the waiver request as well as those cited within the petition. In addition, the SSO must supply oversight where the waiver application explicitly requests exemption from federal regu- lation on the basis of the state regulatory framework. Project planners are advised to engage the FRA, FTA, and SSO to confirm limits of jurisdic- tion and establish communications among all participants and coordinate provisions of the Waiver Petition for SSO participation. It is likely that transit agency will be asked to communicate separately to the SSO for the shared track operation. Major accidents have to be reported to the federal and state regulatory agencies separately. Typically, freight and transit operators would file separate reports, if the incident involved transit and freight trains. A jointly acceptable reporting format that satisfies the require- ments of the FRA, FTA, and SSO could be developed by prior agreement. It also will be neces- sary to develop an acceptable (to both the FRA and FTA) protocol to control, monitor, test, and discipline violations of drug and alcohol use policies. Typically states with large or extensive commuter rail or public rail transit systems are actively monitored by an SSO. Some examples include: • New York—New York State Public Transportation Safety Board • New Jersey—New Jersey Department of Transportation Office of State Safety Oversight • California—California Public Utilities Commission In many states, SSO responsibility is delegated to the Highway Department. Methods for Risk Analyses Federal regulations state that an applicant must demonstrate an equivalent or acceptable level of safety. Safety equivalency is established by comparing the proposed operation with an “accept- ably safe” conventional operation. Federal regulations and policies do not define the relevant quantitative safety measure(s), nor do they identify comparisons of operating models deemed acceptably safe. The applicant proposes these measures and comparisons for consideration by the FRA. Such a process may involve a number of iterations to satisfy the safety authorities. Two such methods of risk analysis approaches are safety measures and comparisons of systems. • Safety Measures—Estimated accident casualties among passenger train occupants, or a mea- sure of total harm combining current standard DOT values for injuries and fatalities with an estimate of accident costs. • Comparison of Systems—Consider: 1. Same light passenger rail service without the freight operations; and 2. Typical commuter rail operation with typical train control systems operating over the same route combined with the same freight service. 24 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner’s Guide

Achieving Safety Equivalence Equivalent safety is not expressly defined in 49 CFR 211, the legal basis for wavier petitions and approved deviations from the Code of Federal Regulations (see Task 9, subsection “The Waiver Process”). Federal law requires: . . . the petition should explain how a level of safety at least equal to that afforded by the FRA rule will be provided by the alternative measures the petitioner proposes . . . requires a quantitative risk analysis of the risk of collision . . . (49 CFR 211, Appendix A, Section II, Part 2, Paragraph C). In other parts of 49 CFR 211, the concept of equivalent safety is often cited. The lack of explicit definition leaves this familiar and oft-quoted term open to interpretation both by regulators and petitioners. The prospective operator should endeavor to satisfy federal regulators on a practi- cal level by addressing several concerns as part of its waiver petition. • How is equivalent safety measured or evaluated in this project? • What is the appropriate and acceptable method for comparing the safety of a fully compliant operation to the proposed shared-track project? • Is the validity of the comparison limited or qualified in any way? Comparing measures of safety equivalence with standards for other modes of transportation merits incorporation in any analysis. This multi-modal risk analysis should consider the null alternative (doing nothing), increased auto use, travel by bus, etc., that might result if a shared- track system is not built. Such an approach has been used for proposed Mag-Lev systems and air travel to determine overall risk, rather than mode specific risk. Equal Risks, Equivalent Safety Equivalent safety is best understood in terms of equal risks. Risk levels assumed for a federally compliant system must remain unchanged for any operating alternatives proposed for the project. Risk is defined as likelihood multiplied by consequence. Likelihood is the probability of a haz- ardous condition arising. Consequence is the severity of the hazard. Likelihood itself is a com- plex product of probability of a train encountering a hazardous event, number of trains and train miles operated in a given time, and number of passengers on each train. Together likelihood and consequence measure the total exposure of life and property to potential hazards. Table 4 pro- vides a simple illustration of the three major constituents of total risk assessment. Shared-Track: Laying the Foundation—Policy and Strategy 25 Table 4. Illustration of three parts of total risk. Likelihood Probability Period Consequences Definition Chance of a hazard event affecting each unit of transportation service. Units of transportation services operated in a given time period. The average amount of damage done given that a hazard event occurs. Aviation Example Chance of a plane crash on a given flight. Number of flights operated per day. Average number of lives lost given a plane crash. Shared-Track Example Chance of an intrusion accident affecting a light rail vehicle and a freight train. Number of light rail vehicle trips operated per day; number of freight trains operated per day. Average loss of life and property given that an intrusion event occurs. Source of Data History of hazard events provides a probability per unit of service. Assumptions are made where there is insufficient data. Operating plan and ridership projection defines the units of transportation services to be provided each day. Accident history provides quantification of severity of each type of accident.

Thus, equivalent safety can be expressed by the mathematical relationship that includes the chance of a hazard event, the measure of consequence, and the predetermined time period. While the mathematics is straightforward, the availability of real world accident and incident data may be limited. To demonstrate safety equivalence, a variety of operating and accident sce- narios must be modeled and tested. Assumptions of consequences may not be based on histor- ical data, and thus might be overly conservative or optimistic. The benefit of a risk assessment methodology is that a repeatable procedure and reproducible data is provided, ensuring objective scenario comparisons. However, the methodology also has some critical shortcomings: (1) lack of actual data for a specific scenario; (2) assumptions regard- ing consequences; and (3) limitations on the scenarios envisioned. A risk analysis template show- ing the process is contained in Part IV after the business case template. Underpinning the Case for Shared-Track The fulfillment of safety and regulatory objectives is focused on the features and characteris- tics of technology used to control the operation and provide the service. Most other institutional concerns are addressed via legal agreements, financial arrangements, memoranda of understand- ing or other official and formal commitments. But safety is a front line issue, where the rubber meets the road. Here, shared-track projects are most vulnerable to rejection, delay, modification or the addition of costly features and technology mandated by regulators. A risk analysis is a component of the safety case. And the safety case is essential to support the business case. It should be recognized that the choices in technology would impact the risk assessment, which in turn affects the costs and operations cited in the business case, the freight operation, FRA Waiver Petition content, and SSO approval. There are trade-offs to consider and decisions should not be made in isolation. The approach to assessing the merits uses the tools described in Chapter 4 “Shared-Track: A Handbook of Examples and Applications” to determine the choice. • Business model—outlines participants and relationships. • Business case—defines the fiduciary contributions cost/benefits of alternatives. • Safety case—analyzes the relative safety of the alternatives, defines roles of FRA and SSO, and the influence of the risk assessment. One shortcoming of the risk analysis is that the theory and results are not fully understood or appreciated by sanctioning authorities. The probabilistic aspect does not satisfactorily address a nightmare scenario event. There is simply less comfort in calculating a one-in-a-billion chance of an accident event every 10 years. Regulators can more easily understand that if an event occurs, then passengers are protected. 26 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner’s Guide

Next: Chapter 3 - Enabling Shared-Track: Technology, Command, and Control »
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TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 130: Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner’s Guide examines a business case for the shared use of non-Federal Railroad Administration-compliant public transit rail vehicles (e.g., light rail vehicles) with freight operations and highlights a business model for such shared-use operations. The report also explores potential advantages and disadvantages of shared-use operations and the issues and barriers that can arise in the course of implementation.

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