See the data: A new way to interact with Trespassing and Rail Suicide data

The Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is excited to announce the launch of a new interactive dashboard, The Trespass and Suicide Dashboard, to help analyze trespass and suicide incidents that occurred on railroad rights-of-way in the United States over the past 10 years. This dashboard allows users to visually interact with trespass and suicide data collected by FRA.

The Trespass and Suicide Dashboard answers the following core questions about trespassing and suicide incidents:

1. Where have trespassing incidents occurred both nationally and locally?
2. What railroads are involved in trespassing incidents?
3. What are the details surrounding trespassing incidents (e.g. trespasser age, day of week, time of day, physical act before casualty, and the event that caused the casualty)
4. Where do suicide incidents occur nationally?
5. What is the trend of suicides incidents by year?

Casualties resulting from a trespassing or suicide incident must be reported to the FRA by railroads through FRA Form 6180.55a –  Railroad Injury and Illness Report. The 55a form captures basic incident information such as the type of person being reported (e.g., trespasser, employee, etc.), date, time, railroad, location, type of event, and descriptive information of the incident reported. Aggregating this information allows FRA to visually capture trespassing and suicide data. Here’s FRA’s guide to railroads on how to prepare Injury and Illness Reports.

Trespassing along railroad rights-of-way is the leading cause of rail-related deaths in America. Nationally, more than 400 trespass fatalities and nearly as many injuries occur each year. The vast majority of these fatalities and injuries are preventable. FRA is committed in its effort to reduce trespassing and suicide incidents along railroad rights-of-way.