Authors: U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Date of Publication:  July 1990

Sponsoring Agency:  U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Performing Organization:  U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Report No: GAO/RCED-90-194

Abstract:

FRA’s safety inspection program does not provide assurance that the nation’s railroads are operating safely. GAO found that FRA did not have minimum inspection coverage standards defining the frequency of railroad inspections or the size of the territory an inspector could be expected to cover. Without such standards, some railroads go uninspected, and FRA does not know whether its staff is adequate. Also, FRA does not systematically target inspections by integrating available accident, injury, and inspection data. Rather, FRA relies on inspectors’ judgment and knowledge to plan inspections, which could result in high-risk areas receiving decreased inspection activity. In addition, FRA neither requires railroads to report actions taken to correct identified safety problems, nor does it have a systematic follow-up inspection program to determine if railroads correct safety problems. Therefore, FRA has no record to show whether the thousands of safety problems it has identified have been corrected. Finally, GAO found that inspectors were not uniformly applying FRA’s safety regulations, which resulted in FRA regions filing different numbers of violations for the same defective condition.
 

No. of Pages:  37