Strategies for Deterring Trespassing on Rail Transit and Commuter Rail Rights-of-Way, Volume 1: Guidebook (2022)

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13   Decision-Making Guidance In addition to the various types of mitigation strategies, there exists guidance associated with determining hazards and implementation strategies. This chapter expands the investigation to capture the decision-making processes that are associated with current domestic and interna- tional trespasser mitigation strategies. Federal Transit Administration The FTA Hazard Management versus Safety Risk Management Guide explains the difference between the hazard management process required in FTA’s original State Safety Oversight regulation and the safety risk management process required in FTA’s Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) regulation (10). The hazard management process’s objective is to address and prevent single deficiencies and failures of the technical system that cause accidents or incidents. Instead, the safety risk management process (see Figure 4) focuses on the system- wide safety risk that applies to all transit system elements, such as employees, infrastructure, equipment, and service activities. The PTASP regulation requires operators of public transportation systems that are recipients of FTA grant funds to develop agency safety plans. The plan includes the processes and pro- cedures to implement safety management systems and consists of safety management policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion. The Guide to Developing the Safety Risk Management Component of a Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan summa- rizes one of the four safety management system components, safety risk management (11). The PTASP regulation requires the safety risk management process to be applied to all elements of each agency’s system. The regulation also requires three elements to be developed—safety hazard identification, safety risk assessment, and safety risk mitigation—to establish methods or processes for addressing safety risk. FTA’s Sample Hazard Classification System—Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) Implementation guides transit agencies in establishing a classification system for hazards in the various aspects of the transit system (12). The document initially defines a hazard and a consequence and then provides definitions and examples of different types of hazards, including organizational hazards, technological hazards, and environmental hazards. Another FTA guide, Sample Safety Risk Assessment Matrices for Rail Transit Agencies, assists operators of public transportation systems with establishing a safety risk assessment matrix that could be prepared for the agency safety plans (13). The guide recommends agencies establish a matrix by defining and categorizing the severity of potential consequences and the levels of likelihood for each category. C H A P T E R 3

14 Strategies for Deterring Trespassing on Rail Transit and Commuter Rail Rights-of-Way Federal Railroad Administration The FRA Highway-Rail Grade Crossing and Trespass Prevention: Compliance, Procedures, and Programs Manual is designed to provide practical resources for uniform application of FRA regulations about grade crossing safety and trespass prevention programs throughout the nation (14). The manual can aid understanding of FRA policies, procedures, and programs that federal and state inspectors use. The manual introduces the procedures for conducting a railroad tres- passing assessment in the following six steps: • Step 1. Identify the problem. • Step 2. Identify resources and stakeholders. • Step 3. Analyze the cause. • Step 4. Develop and implement trespass mitigation measures. • Step 5. Evaluate the results. • Step 6. Report and document. In 2007, FRA released a document to manage gap safety, which indicates that a gap between railcars and high-level station platforms poses a safety risk to passenger train users. The gap safety document includes the hazard analysis and resolution process based on the U.S. Depart- ment of Defense methodology, as shown in Figure 5 (15). The hazard analysis and resolution process consists of five steps: define a system, identify hazards, assess hazards, resolve hazards, and follow up. This process was later demonstrated in an FRA research project in West Palm Beach, Florida, to address trespassing (16). Collision Hazard Analysis Guide: Commuter and Intercity Passenger Rail Service describes the hazard analysis process, providing a structured approach for passenger rail operators to identify and address hazards in their systems (17). These steps fall within the CARE model, as presented in Figure 6. American Public Transportation Association The APTA Manual for the Development of System Safety Program Plans for Commuter Rail- roads assists in developing a system safety program plan designed for a commuter railroad’s specific needs over the entire range of operating circumstances and system life cycles (18). Source: Federal Transit Administration, Guide to Developing the Safety Risk Management Component of a Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (11). Figure 4. Safety management system components.

Decision-Making Guidance 15   Source: Federal Railroad Administration, FRA Approach to Managing Gap Safety (15). Figure 5. FRA hazard analysis and resolution process. Source: Federal Railroad Administration, Highway-Rail Grade Crossing and Trespass Prevention: Compliance, Procedures, and Programs Manual (14). Figure 6. CARE model showing the assessment steps. Element 15: Rail Corridor Operation Safety includes trespassing and intrusion programs and states that a “system safety plan must include identification and evaluation of the risk to the operation and passengers created by trespassers, as well as the risk of injury and death to trespassers” (18). RESTRAIL Problem-Solving Model The Reduction of Suicides and Trespasses on Railway Property (RESTRAIL) Practical Guide (19) along with a paper titled “Optimizing suicide and trespass prevention on railways: A problem-solving model from the RESTRAIL project” (20) provide a detailed multistep problem-solving model, as shown in Figure 7. The structured analysis consists of a six-step recommended but flexible methodology. The guide indicates that the “steps in the process are recurrent, allowing an iterative analysis and decision process” (19).

16 Strategies for Deterring Trespassing on Rail Transit and Commuter Rail Rights-of-Way Source: Havârneanu et al. (2016) (20). Figure 7. RESTRAIL problem-solving model.