The TRB Committee for Review of the Federal Railroad Administration Research, Development, and Demonstration Programs has been asked by FRA to provide assistance in developing input for a new Five Year Strategic Plan for Railroad Research and Development. The Committee is undertaking this assignment by engaging the stakeholders and customers of the programs in a discussion about needed research. As a part of the effort, TRB and FRA have now scheduled a public workshop on railroad research needs for April 5-6, 2006. The Committee has chosen to organize the workshop around the themes of safety, capacity, and efficiency.

Safety is the main theme running through nearly all FRA R & D work since the 1970s, and its continuing importance needs no justification.

Capacity is a hot issue. Capacity, or rather limitations thereon, is getting a lot of attention in transportation circles these days. A railroad capacity problem would be of minor national importance were alternative modes able to handle substantial growth. The reality is, however, that highway construction is not keeping up with the growth in demand. Many public officials look to the railroads to provide a safety valve for a rising tide of freight traffic.

Efficiency is the third theme for the R & D workshop. Efficiency has many guises and suggests many avenues for progress in railroading. There are close linkages among productivity, profitability, innovation, and investment. The public benefits of Staggers Act deregulation were precisely these, that by allowing market forces to guide the adjustment of industry supply to market demand, firms squeezed out waste and earned sufficient profitability to afford reinvestment. Other efficiency considerations are also important in setting public policy for transportation, including fuel efficiency.

The workshop will also focus on some important factors relating to the trade-offs (positive and negative) naturally encountered in considering priority choices between or among safety, capacity, and efficiency. For example, there may be conflicts between a firm’s drive for efficiency sometimes running up against FRA’s safety rules, or a capacity bottleneck resulting from an efficiency-driven shortage of trained and rested labor. There will also be, however, ample examples of where the three themes reinforce each other—where capacity additions make an operation safer or more efficient, or where a safety investment such as PTC adds line capacity.