Committee on the Review of Department of Transportation Testing of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) Brakes

On October 26, 2016, TRB released a Letter Report from the Committee on the Review of Department of Transportation Testing of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) Brakes. Congress required the Secretary of Transportation to reconsider the ECP braking system requirements for certain trains carrying high-hazard flammable liquids and determine, by the end of 2017, whether those requirements are justified. Also, in response to a congressional request, the National Academies agreed to form a committee to review the planning, execution, and results of the tests and related analysis the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) will use to inform the Secretary’s decision.

TRB’s Committee on the Review of Department of Transportation Testing of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) Brakes is in the process of preparing a report that reviews DOT’s test plan. However, because DOT already had begun its testing activities out of concern over meeting the congressional deadline, the October 26 letter from the committee recommends that DOT suspend its ongoing testing activities of ECP brakes until after the committee’s report reviewing DOT’s test plan has been issued by the end of this year. The committee believes taking such an approach will help ensure that the most important assumptions involved in the comparison of emergency performance of railroad tank car ECP brakes with that of other braking systems will be identified and tested.