The rail industry should do more to leverage the safety benefits of positive train control (PTC), says the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in a recent report about how to incorporate new technologies into existing PTC initiatives…
In NTSB’s report, made available last week, the federal agency found areas where the railroads and the Federal Railroad Administration can maximize PTC technology by developing new technology that can enhance existing PTC capabilities.
This includes developing technologies that can reliably identify and locate the end of a train and relay that information to other trains to prevent collisions during restricted speed operations; deploying technologies that prevent end-of-track collisions in terminals or mitigate their severity; and using PTC technology to improve communication and enforcement of working limits because of workers’ ability to access PTC technology through devices such as tablet computers.
