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In support of industry and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) objectives to develop methods to increase automation in freight rail operations, Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) performed a requirements analysis and initiated a safety analysis for a locomotive-borne sensor platform...
The Volpe Center and FRA evaluated the effectiveness of a pedestrian gate enhancement, commonly known as a gate skirt, to deter pedestrians from violating active grade crossing warnings at the E. Main St. crossing in Ramsey, New Jersey. The goal of the added secondary gates is to reduce the...
In 2009, the Federal Railroad Administration’s Workforce Development Team (FRA-WDT) conducted extensive research on this subject with railroad industry stakeholders (e.g., Class I freight and passenger railroads, shortline and regional railroads, labor unions, major associations, academia, and...
FRA has engaged in several initiatives to help improve the safety of highway-rail crossings. To that end, FRA recently funded research through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to encourage development of a drone-based inspection system for highway-rail grade crossings.
Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI), with support from the Federal Railroad Administration, researched a new mode of train control proposed to increase operational efficiency where Positive Train Control (PTC) equipment has been installed and is operational. TTCI developed a concept of...
The study revealed that it is possible to locate defects in the rail head within the desired precision if a recognizable feature such as a bolt hole, rail end, or weld are nearby; that is, the method presented provides an accurate distance from a known datum to within approximately ±0.5 inch....
The Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI) is dedicated to the continuous improvement of safety and safety culture across all short line and regional railroads in the United States. Strengthening a railroad’s safety culture creates a safer working environment that may result in less frequent or...
MTRI Inc. and Michigan Technological University developed and demonstrated a drone-based system for automated inspection of grade crossings. The prototype system can determine whether vertical approach grades create a risk for vehicles to get stuck on tracks, assess the adequacy of visual sight...
Clear Signal for Action (CSA) is a safety process that seeks to change safety culture through the organizational hierarchy. It is a non-regulatory, proactive risk reduction method for improving safety and safety culture, which integrates safety leadership development (SLD), peer-to-peer feedback...
Transportation Technology Center, Inc., as part of a project sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration, evaluated the safety and operational performance of the Enhanced Automatic Train Control (E-ATC) braking enforcement algorithm and found it exceeds previously established safety...