STB Publishes Response to Freight Rail Service Hearing
Yesterday, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) published a Decision (EP 770.1) in response to hearing testimony and written testimony submitted under STB Docket EP 770. According to the Digest of the Decision:
“The Board is requiring service recovery plans and progress reports from the four largest U.S. rail carriers and is directing those carriers to participate in biweekly conference calls to further explain efforts to correct service deficiencies.
The Board is also requiring all Class I rail carriers to report more comprehensive and customer-centric performance metrics and employment data for a six-month period. In response to concerns raised at the recent hearing and related communications, the Board is taking this action to inform its assessment of further actions that may be warranted to address the acute service issues facing the rail industry and to promote industry-wide transparency, accountability, and improvements in rail service.”
The Problem
The Board notes (pg 1) that it has heard widespread complaints about “inconsistent and unreliable rail service” including:
Tight car supply and unfilled car orders,
Delays in transportation for carload and bulk traffic,
Increased origin dwell time for released unit trains,
Missed switches, and
Ineffective customer assistance.
The Board also reports (pg 2) that weekly rail service performance data supplied by the railroads under 49 CFR Part 1250, validates “the anecdotal information reported to the Board”. The Board heard testimony from Class I railroads (pg 3) that “labor shortages as the primary cause of the recent service issues and referred to their plans to increase hiring and employee retention.”
Short Term Reporting
The Board is requiring (pg 4) four Class I railroads (BNSF, CSXT, NSR, and UP) “to file service recovery plans explaining the specific actions that each carrier will take to improve service and the specific metrics by which it will evaluate its progress toward such improvements.” The three other Class I’s (CP, CN, or KCS) are not currently being included in this requirement. The Board will also require the four railroads to file bi-weekly service progress reports on the action plans and the “reason for any changes to, the actions set out in the service recovery plans.”
Additionally, all seven Class I railroads will expand their current weekly Rail Service Data reporting for the next six-months to include data on (pgs 5-9):
The weekly average terminal dwell times, measured in hours, for the carrier’s 11th through 20th largest terminals,
The weekly average number of train starts per day, sorted by train type,
For each operating division and for the system, the percentage of scheduled spots and pulls that were fulfilled.
For each operating division and for the system, the weekly average number of local trains cancelled per day, and the aggregate number of local trains cancelled per week, broken down by cause,
Additionally, the Class I railroads will report railcar data (reported separately for privately-owned, TTX-owned, and railroad-owned cars), including:
The weekly average number of cars per day in storage,
The weekly average number of cars per day in service with no mileage
The weekly average number of cars per day in service with mileage,
The weekly average number of car miles per day, and
The aggregate number of car miles per week.
Railcar reporting data will also include:
For rail cars moving in manifest service, the percentage of cars constructively or actually placed at destination within 24 hours of the original estimated time of arrival,
For unit trains the percentage of trains constructively or actually placed at destination within 24 hours of the original estimated time of arrival, and
For intermodal traffic, the percentage of trains that arrive at destination within 24 hours of the original estimated time of arrival.
The weekly reporting requirement will also include recrewing information and for each category of employees covered in the Monthly Report of Number of Railroad Employees the railroads will report:
Total employee count,
How many employees were added,
How many employees were separated (with a breakout of those employees who separated by voluntary resignation),
How many employees have been furloughed but are potentially available for recall,
The number of “extra-board employees”, and
For categories 300, 400, 500, and 600, how many employees are working in active service
Commentary
While it may look like the Surface Transportation Board is kicking the can down the road, this dual data collection effort is an important step forward in addressing what is inherently a very complicated problem. The STB already collects a large mass of information from the railroad. The added data will provide a better look at the scope of the current problem and the six-month time frame will provide for a baseline upon which to compare the results of any future actions the Board may order to rectify the problems.
Unfortunately, these service problems are going to continue. The four problem Class 1s are unlikely to make significant changes to their management programs that appear to have been successful from the point of view of profitability. I suspect that they will continue to focus on the difficulty of hiring additional personnel. If that is successful (and that may be very difficult in the current economic situation), it will not address the process management issues that appear to underly many of these service issues.
With the other three Class Is operating in the same economic environment, and not exhibiting anywhere near the same level of service problems, it seems clear that there are other root causes of the existing problems. Hopefully, the new reporting requirements will help the STB to identify what those root causes actually are.