FY15 Supplemental for Short Line Railroad Safety Institute Assessment Tools and Program Development

his is a directed grant to the University of Connecticut (UCONN) to continue their pilot testing and refinement of safety culture assessment tools (e.g., surveys, interview protocol) for the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) Safety Institute. This project addresses the safety of crude oil transported by rail and responds to a January 2014 letter from the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to ASLRRA. UCONN has participated extensively in the initial planning stages of the Safety Institute as a key member of the Institute’s development team. Under grant FR-RRD-0061, UCONN developed a suite of safety culture assessment tools (i.e., web-based survey, interview protocols, and onsite review protocols) grounded in current research literature and began pilot testing them at short line railroads. Under grant FR-RRD-0031, UCONN conducted a job analysis of the assessor role, detailed in the FRA report Development of a Short Line Railroad Safety Institute: Phase I – Job Analysis (RR 14-10). Amending UCONN’s current grant will allow UCONN to continue pilot testing, collecting data from, and validating the suite of safety culture tools developed under grant FR-RRD-0061.