Innovative Rail Safety Outreach for a New Rail Transit Service in Austin, Texas

This paper describes how optimizing safety is a major task facing America’s rail transit operations, especially with New Start systems in areas where the public are unfamiliar with such operations. In the Austin, Texas area, Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Capital Metro) is installing a new rail transit system (Capital MetroRail) using diesel-powered multiple-unit rolling stock that will run on 32 miles of existing agency-owned freight tracks between the exurb of Leander and downtown Austin, serving 9 stations. In certain segments of the line, these light regional passenger rail (“commuter”) trains are expected to reach speeds of 75 mph. nationally, rail transit ridership and passenger mileage have been increasing dramatically – but this growth has been accompanied by increasing safety challenges. According to a report prepared for Capital Metro by Glenn Gadbois of the Texas Citizen Fund, in 2003 U.S. rail transit agencies reported nearly 3,000 accidents across all modes, resulting in 39 fatalities and 3,066 injuries.