Railroad group requests rulemaking on STB data submission

The Association of American Railroads has come out against what it sees as ‘piece-meal’ changes in Class I data-reporting requirements.    The Association of American Railroads has come out against shifting data-reporting requirements for Class I railroads, telling the Surface Transportation Board “ad-hoc, piecemeal adjustments to the board’s reporting rule” are not the way to implement new policies.
   AAR called for a rulemaking to put to rest changing data-reporting requirements and to enumerate exactly what railroads need to provide without adding in requirements down the road.
   In a letter to the board, AAR’s Counsel Timothy Stafford wrote that the board takes issue with small adjustments to reporting rules. The latest case stems from an Oct. 24 request by the Fertilizer Institute that asks for railroads to provide fertilizer-shipment data.
   On Oct. 22, all Class I railroads began filing weekly service updates to the board, as required in an Oct. 8 decision. The policy is an expansion of the reporting that had been submitted by BNSF and CP since April. All Class I carriers have been submitting a variety of statistics including data on system-average train speed by train type, average terminal dwell time and total cars on the line by type. Carriers operating out of Chicago, which the board has highlighted as a major area of congestion, will file a weekly joint report on the condition of the congestion.
   “The board should not seek to collect further information without instituting a notice and comment rulemaking and complying with the Paperwork Reduction Act,” Stafford wrote. “Railroads transport many products and commodities that are crucial to the functioning of the U.S. economy. Singling out the transportation of one commodity or groups of commodities for special scrutiny does not allow for a holistic understanding of how railroads are working diligently to meet the needs of all of their customers and the nation at large.”
   At the time of the initial order, the board said shippers had asked for these statistics during a public hearing on Sept. 4 in Fargo, N.D.
   “Shippers assert that performance metrics are important for rail users to plan logistics, minimize economic harm to operations and revenues, assist with business planning, and to better serve their own customers during the service-recovery period,” the board wrote in its decision. “Shippers have also stated that information would bring transparency regarding the extent to which the railroads are improving and resolving the ongoing service issues.”