MFN Resource Library
Barriers to Innovation and Automation in Railway Regulation
R Street Policy Study N0. 175
Ian Adams, Nick Zaiac and Caden Rosenbaum
June 2019
Key Points:
As technology advances, automation will make it cheaper and easier to inspect all aspects of railroads more often than existing rules allow.
Staffing mandates have no proven safety benefits, so mandating extra crew only puts extra staff in harm’s way. If anything, the extra staffer could distract the train’s engineer.
Automation of passenger railroads has been around for more than 40 years and is the norm with new urban trains. The first automated freight railroads started operating in 2018.
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