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24 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide
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.
