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Identifying and monitoring rockfall- and landslide-prone areas is crucial for effective risk mitigation, as these geohazard events present significant challenges and hazards to railway operations and safety. Current geohazard prediction models do not identify specific areas where an event could...
The Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) investigated methods to mitigate timber tie spike failures. This research is part of an ongoing investigation sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that began in 2018....
FRA sponsored the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to evaluate the efficacy of increasing the flash rate of gate-mounted flashers on driver compliance with grade crossing warning devices. This work aimed to increase safety by reducing the violation rate and the average time of...
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sponsored Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech), in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University Altoona (Penn State Altoona) and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), to expand an existing summer youth program into the Tracks...
FRA sponsored a full-scale shell impact test of a DOT-105 tank car designed for refrigerated liquid CO2 service. The tank car was filled to 95.2 percent with water and pressurized to 225 psig. The impact occurred at 15.5 mph with a 297,000-pound ram car equipped with a 12x12-inch impactor. The...
SLSI conducts an annual analysis to assess the status of safety culture in the industry. This report summarizes findings from a systematic review of the 20 SLSI Safety Culture Assessment Reports created in 2023 and discusses industry trends in the strengths and opportunities for improvement...
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is testing a new model for enabling railroads with very small numbers of employees to join the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS). This model adopts an additional third party to support event analysis when small railroads lack the resources...
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research, Development, and Technology’s Human Factors Division sponsored TrueSafety Evaluation and Perigean Technologies to develop an Expertise Management (EM) framework for identifying, capturing, and transferring critical areas of expertise...
The Federal Railroad Administration sponsored research conducted at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center aimed to assess the safety equivalence of the passenger rail seat dynamic test requirements specified in the United States American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and...