Review of the Federal Railroad Administration’s Research and Development Program
The Office of Research, Development,
and Technology (RD&T) of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
has excelled in engaging, maintaining communication with, and using
inputs from a broad range of stakeholder groups.
That is among the findings in
TRB Special Report 334:
Review of the Federal Railroad
Administration’s Research and
Development Program. FRA's RD&T requested this National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine review of
the products and services that RD&T provides to other divisions of FRA
and the railroad industry in accordance with its mission.
Specifically,
RD&T asked the National Academies’ Transportation Research
Board (TRB) to convene a committee of experts to review the quality and
relevance of RD&T’s current and planned research portfolio and to provide
advice on strategies to better identify research needs, conduct high-quality
research, and ensure that research products contribute to FRA’s primary
goal of improving railroad safety. In addition to its finding on stakeholder communications, the committee identified the need for a more comprehensive approach to program and project evaluation to assess the ultimate safety impacts of RD&T's work.
The FRA oversees the safety of the nation’s commuter and intercity passenger
railroads, which have carried about 680 million passengers per year,
and freight railroad system, which has transported about 1.4 billion tons
of freight per year on more than 135,000 miles of track.
This Summary Last Modified On: 12/8/2020