Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the program, policies, and practices of the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) rail safety program.
FRA is not accomplishing its goal of ensuring railroad safety by monitoring the railroads' safety efforts. The Federal Safety Enforcement Program mainly involves making individual routine inspections of track or railcars. These inspections often result in identifying defects and suggesting enforcement actions. However, the narrow focus of this approach, the limited inspection force, and the questionable deterrent value of the violations process have not encouraged broad-based railroad compliance with safety standards. The program's primary effect has been to get individual defects corrected and not to motivate railroads to improve their overall safety programs. If FRA shifted its emphasis from the program of individual inspections to broad-based systems assessments which were comprehensive evaluations of the railroads' entire systems and operations, the program would be more effective and deficiencies could be brought to the attention of the railroads' top management. Many inspectors are unable to cover their assigned territories due to a lack of consistency in the size of the territories, vacant inspector positions, travel fund restrictions, and unreliable railroad inspection records. The deterrent value of the violations process is questionable due to a reporting system that does not have adequate controls. A program whereby FRA reimburses state governments for up to 50 percent of the expenses for state railroad inspectors needs improvement.
