Chlorine Institute to FRA: Correct PTC cost-benefit analysis (3/17/2010)

The Chlorine Institute Inc. (CI) is calling on the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to reissue its positive train control (PTC) final rule with a “corrected” cost-benefit analysis.

Published on Jan. 14, the rule “drastically underestimates” the technology’s benefits, according to a CI-commissioned follow-up cost-benefit study conducted by L. E. Peabody & Associates Inc. The study found that the final rule underestimated the net direct and indirect benefits of implementing PTC by more than $12 billion.

In addition to safer operations, the key benefits to railroads, shippers and the public include fuel savings; increased rail-line capacity; improved rail equipment reporting, monitoring and utilization; better rail dispatching operations; improved transit times and reliability; and reduced highway congestion, according to the study.

While CI “strongly supports” the rule, “this faulty analysis could foster a situation that would allow railroads to impose on shippers of chlorine and other toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) chemicals an unfairly large share of the costs of applying PTC technology,” CI officials said in a petition filed with the FRA.

“These efforts will have a direct and substantial impact on prospective TIH rail shippers, and a strong incentive to move TIH shipments from the safer rail mode to the less-safe highway mode of transportation,” said CI President Arthur Dungan in the petition.

Because of “undeniable flaws in the cost/benefit analysis” and “substantial economic harm” facing TIH shippers, the FRA should reconsider its final rule “insofar as its cost/benefit analysis is concerned,” CI officials said.

Source: Progressive Railroading Daily News