Comprehensive Cost of Rail Incidents in NC - Technology Transfer

Under the leadership of the North Carolina Rail Division in RP 2020-44, ITRE developed a methodology and a cost tool for estimating and forecasting the comprehensive cost of these rail incidents to help illuminate the economic and social impacts to North Carolina and to provide support for countermeasures and expanded safety training. The user-friendly cost tool is capable of estimating costs stemming from property damage, injuries and fatalities, delay, rerouting, and supply chain events, as well as emergency responder costs. Policymakers often underestimate the costs of rail incidents and are thus less inclined to allocate scarce resources to rail safety countermeasures. The tool provides a method to understand and estimate the total costs associated with an incident. Policymakers often underestimate the costs of rail incidents and are thus less inclined to allocate scarce resources to rail safety countermeasures. Thus, accompanying this research, the NCDOT Rail Division requires a concerted public outreach campaign to demonstrate the cost of rail incidents in North Carolina and promote the effective use of the cost tool in conjunction with safety countermeasures. Tracy Anderson, Traffic Safety Communications Team Lead at ITRE, will be leading the public outreach campaign. Additionally, there are a number of upcoming conference events and transportation annual meetings that serve as perfect venues to share the newly developed and publicly available tool with audiences that would fully benefit from its use. Widespread awareness and dissemination of the tool would help agencies throughout the country benefit from this tool and solidify North Carolina’s role as a leader in rail safety. Additionally, the conferences would provide a forum to improve the cost tool through meaningful input from transportation and industry experts. Insights and suggestions gathered from the conferences and annual meetings will be used to enhance the cost tool.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $24917
• Contract Numbers:

  FHWA/NC/2021-28

• Sponsor Organizations:

  North Carolina Department of Transportation

  Research and Development
  1549 Mail Service Center
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27699-1549
• Managing Organizations:

  North Carolina Department of Transportation

  Research and Development
  1549 Mail Service Center
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27699-1549
• Project Managers:

  Kirby, John

• Performing Organizations:

  North Carolina State University, Raleigh

  Institute for Transportation Research and Education
  Campus Box 8601
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27695-8601
• Principal Investigators:

  Bert, Steve

  Searcy, Sarah

  Findley, Daniel J

• Start Date: 20210501
• Expected Completion Date: 20220430
• Actual Completion Date: 20220430

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Outreach; Railroad safety; Safety campaigns; Technology transfer
• Identifier Terms: North Carolina Department of Transportation
• Subject Areas: Education and Training; Finance; Railroads; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01773670
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: North Carolina Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: FHWA/NC/2021-28
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jun 2 2021 9:51AM