Federal Railroad Administration Asks Operators About Safety Paperwork
Published Date: 10/29/2026
Notice
Summary
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is asking for your thoughts on their plan to collect some info from passenger rail operators. They want to make sure the paperwork isn’t too much and are inviting comments until November 30, 2026. This affects rail companies who’ll spend about 2 hours on safety assessments, helping keep trains safe without breaking the bank or wasting time.
Analyzed Economic Effects
6 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 4 costs, 1 mixed.
Paperwork: SSP annual burden and cost
Passenger rail operators are estimated to produce 233 annual responses with a total of 1,781 paperwork hours per year for the System Safety Program (SSP) information collection, with an annual burden-hour dollar cost equivalent of $164,516.50. The FRA lists the respondent universe as 32 passenger rail operations plus 1 new passenger rail operation.
36-month SSP implementation deadline
Under the SSP regulation described in the ICR, each passenger rail operation must have an SSP fully implemented within 36 months of FRA approval of a submitted SSP plan.
2-hour internal assessment paperwork estimate
FRA estimates the paperwork portion of the required annual SSP internal assessment will take about 2 hours, plus an additional 2 hours for the chief safety official's certification of results; FRA clarifies these 2-hour estimates cover administrative documentation only, not the full compliance activities.
FRMP reporting consolidated into SSP ICR
FRA is integrating Fatigue Risk Management Program (FRMP) burden hours previously reported under OMB Control No. 2130-0633 into the primary SSP collection (OMB Control No. 2130-0599); the consolidated table explicitly allocates specific burden hours for developing FRMP plans, fatigue risk analysis, mitigation strategies, implementation evaluation, employee consultation, initial review meetings with FRA, and plan amendments.
Change in projected new rail operations
FRA revised its estimate of new passenger rail operations from one annually to one over the upcoming three-year ICR period, citing a baseline decrease in total passenger rail operations from 33 to 32; FRA will reevaluate this estimate in the next ICR renewal cycle.
Wage rates used to calculate burden costs
FRA used Surface Transportation Board 2024 wage data to calculate burden costs: $51.54/hour for employee group 200 (Professional & Administrative) with a 75% overhead to total $90.19/hour, and $69.27/hour for employee group 100 (Executives, Officials, & Staff Assistants) with a 75% overhead to total $121.22/hour.
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Key Dates
Department and Agencies
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