The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register earlier this week. In it, the FRA is proposing to expand the scope of its alcohol and drug regulations to cover employees who perform maintenance-of-way (MOW) activities as mandated by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA). In addition, FRA is proposing certain substantive amendments that either respond to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations or update and clarify the alcohol and drug regulations based on a retrospective regulatory review (RRR) analysis. Comments to the NPRM can be posted on the docket [No. FRA-2009-0039] and are due on or before September 26, 2014 at the following link: The NPRM print copy can be viewed at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-07-28/pdf/2014-17195.pdf.
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Federal Railroad Administration Publishes Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
BTS Releases 1st-Quarter 2014 Air Fare Data
BTS 36-14
BTS Releases 1st-Quarter 2014 Air Fare Data The average domestic air fare decreased to $381 in the first quarter of 2014, down 1.0 percent from the average fare of $384 in the first quarter of 2013, adjusted for inflation, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported today. During that January to March period, Cincinnati, Ohio, had the highest average fare, $514, while Sanford, Florida, had the lowest, $119. BTS reports average fares based on domestic itinerary fares. Itinerary fares consist of round-trip fares, unless the customer does not purchase a return trip. In that case, the one-way fare is included. One-way trips accounted for 34 percent of fares calculated for the first quarter of 2014. Fares are based on the total ticket value, which consists of the price charged by the airlines plus any additional taxes and fees levied by an outside entity at the time of purchase. Fares include only the price paid at the time of the ticket purchase and do not include other fees, such as baggage fees, paid at either the airport or onboard the aircraft. Averages do not include frequent-flyer or “zero fares,” or abnormally high reported fares. Constant 2014 dollars are used for inflation adjustment. Inflation-Adjusted Air Fares First-quarter fares rose 7.9 percent adjusted for inflation from the recession-affected low of $349 in 2009 to the first quarter of 2011. Since 2011, first quarter fares have shown little change, increasing 1.2 percent from 2011 to 2014. The first-quarter 2014 fare was down 19.9 percent adjusted for inflation from the average fare of $475 in 1999, the highest inflation-adjusted first quarter average fare in the 19 years since BTS began collecting air fare records in 1995. The 19.9 percent decline took place while there was an increase in overall consumer prices of 43.2 percent. Since 1995, inflation-adjusted fares declined 17.8 percent compared to a 56.1 percent increase in overall consumer prices. U.S. passenger airlines collected 70.2 percent of their total revenue from passenger fares during the first quarter of 2014, down from 1990 when 87.6 percent of airline revenue was received from fares. Quarter-to-Quarter Change In the three-year period from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2014, inflation-adjusted fares increased 1.2 percent. In the two-year period from the first quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2014, inflation-adjusted fares decreased 0.9 percent. See BTS Air Fare Release for summary tables and additional data. See BTS Air Fare web page for historic data. ### You are subscribed to DOT News for Department of Transportation. This information has recently been updated, and is now available.
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BTS Releases May 2014 North American Freight Numbers
BTS 35-14 Advisory BTS Releases May 2014 North American Freight Numbers U.S.-NAFTA trade totaled $103.9 billion in May 2014 as four of five transportation modes – vessel, pipeline, rail, and trucks – carried more U.S.-NAFTA trade than in May 2013, according to the TransBorder Freight Data released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). The value of May 2014 trade was 5.4 percent more than in May 2013 (Table 2). U.S.-NAFTA trade has increased from the same month of the previous year for four consecutive months and in 10 of the last 11 months, interrupted by a 0.2 percent decrease in January. The January decline reflected the severe weather in the northern states and along the U.S.-Canada border. Trade by Mode In May, commodities moving by pipeline grew in value by the most of any mode, 23.1 percent. Vessel freight increased 6.7 percent followed by a rail increase of 6.2 percent, a truck freight increase of 3.8 percent, and an air decrease of 7.9 percent. The increase in the value of freight carried by pipelines reflects both a rise in the volume and prices for oil and other petroleum products, the primary commodity transported by pipelines. Trucks carry three-fifths of U.S.-NAFTA trade and are the most heavily utilized mode for moving goods to and from both U.S.-NAFTA partners. Trucks carried 59.9 percent of U.S.-NAFTA trade in May 2014, accounting for $31.8 billion of exports and $30.4 billion of imports. Rail remained the second largest mode, moving 15.2 percent of all U.S.-NAFTA trade, followed by vessel at 8.7 percent, pipeline at 7.9 percent, and air at 3.4 percent. The surface transportation modes of truck, rail and pipeline carried 83.0 percent of the total U.S.-NAFTA freight flows. Trade with Canada Year-to-year, the value of U.S.-Canada trade by pipeline increased the most of any mode, growing 24.1 percent. U.S.-Canada pipeline trade comprised 94.8 percent of total U.S.-NAFTA pipeline trade in May. Trade by rail increased 4.5 percent, followed by truck at 2.7 percent. Vessel freight decreased 7.7 percent and air freight decreased 9.8 percent. Trucks carried 53.9 percent of the $57.7 billion of freight to and from Canada, followed by rail at 16.4 percent, pipeline at 13.5 percent, vessel at 5.6 percent and air at 4.0 percent. The surface transportation modes of truck, rail and pipeline carried 83.8 percent of the total U.S.-Canada freight flows. Trade with Mexico Year-to-year, the value of U.S.-Mexico trade by vessel increased the most of any mode, growing 16.9 percent, due to an increase in mineral fuels exports. Trade with Mexico by rail rose 8.7 percent followed by pipeline at 8.1 percent and truck at 4.9 percent. Air freight declined 4.2 percent. Trucks carried 67.3 percent of the $46.3 billion of freight to and from Mexico, followed by rail at 13.8 percent, vessel at 12.6 percent, air at 2.7 percent and pipeline at 0.9 percent. The surface transportation modes of truck, rail and pipeline carried 82.0 percent of the total U.S.-Mexico freight flows. See BTS Transborder Data Release for summary tables and additional data. See North American Transborder Freight Data on the BTS website for additional data for surface modes since 1995 and all modes since 2004. ###
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U.S. DOT Announces Comprehensive Proposed Rulemaking for the Safe Transportation of Crude Oil, Flammable Materials
DOT 67-14 U.S. DOT Announces Comprehensive Proposed Rulemaking for the Safe Transportation of Crude Oil, Flammable Materials WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation today released the details of its comprehensive rulemaking proposal to improve the safe transportation of large quantities of flammable materials by rail - particularly crude oil and ethanol - in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and a companion Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM). The NPRM proposes enhanced tank car standards, a classification and testing program for mined gases and liquids and new operational requirements for high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT) that include braking controls and speed restrictions. Specifically, within two years, it proposes the phase out of the use of older DOT 111 tank cars for the shipment of packing group I flammable liquids, including most Bakken crude oil, unless the tank cars are retrofitted to comply with new tank car design standards. The ANPRM seeks further information on expanding comprehensive oil spill response planning requirements for shipments of flammable materials. Both the NPRM and ANPRM are available for review here and will be open for 60 days of public comment. Given the urgency of the safety issues addressed in these proposals, PHMSA does not intend to extend the comment period. “Safety is our top priority, which is why I’ve worked aggressively to improve the safe transport of crude oil and other hazardous materials since my first week in office,” said Secretary Foxx. “While we have made unprecedented progress through voluntary agreements and emergency orders, today’s proposal represents our most significant progress yet in developing and enforcing new rules to ensure that all flammable liquids, including Bakken crude and ethanol, are transported safely.” Today’s NPRM is based on an ANPRM published by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) last September, and reflects feedback from more than 152,000 commenters. Specifically, PHMSA will seek comment on the following provisions:
PHMSA will concurrently publish an ANPRM on oil spill response plans, specifically current thresholds and their applicability to rail, in part in response to an NTSB recommendation issued in January 2014. In addition to issuing the NPRM and ANPRM, PHMSA concurrently released a report summarizing the analysis of Bakken crude oil data gathered by PHMSA and FRA between August 2013 and May 2014. The data show that crude oil from the Bakken region in North Dakota tends to be more volatile and flammable than other crude oils. Collected as part of Operation Classification (OSD), a joint PHMSA and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) effort, the data were initially gathered to verify that crude oil was being properly classified in accordance with federal regulations, and evolved to include more robust testing to better understand the characteristics of the product. The safety risk presented by transporting Bakken crude oil by rail is magnified both by an increasing volume of Bakken being shipped by throughout the U.S. and the large distances over which the product is shipped. In 2008, 9,500 rail-carloads of crude moved through our country compared to last year, when there were 415,000 rail-carloads. Moreover, on average Bakken crude oil shipments travel over 1,000 miles from point of origin to refineries on the coasts. PHMSA and FRA plan to continue the sampling and analysis activities of Operation Safe Delivery through the summer and fall of 2014working with the regulated community to ensure the safe transportation of crude oil across the nation. The new, comprehensive rulemaking will open for public comment once published in the Federal Register at www.regulations.gov, and I urge you to read it and provide your feedback. ###
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Open Letter from Secretary Foxx and 11 Former DOT Secretaries Urging Congress to Address Long-Term Transportation Needs
WASHINGTON – As Congress considers legislation to avoid a shortfall of the Highway Trust Fund, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and 11 of his predecessors offered the following open letter to Congress. In addition to Secretary Foxx, Secretaries Ray LaHood, Mary Peters, Norman Mineta, Rodney Slater, Frederico Peña, Samuel Skinner, Andrew Card, James Burnley, Elizabeth Dole, William Coleman and Alan Boyd all signed the letter. Their message: Congress’ work doesn’t end with the bill under consideration. Transportation in America still needs a much larger, longer-term investment. The text of the letter is below:
This week, it appears that Congress will act to stave off the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund. The bill, if passed, should extend surface transportation funding until next May. We are hopeful that Congress appears willing to avert the immediate crisis. But we want to be clear: This bill will not “fix” America’s transportation system. For that, we need a much larger and longer-term investment. On this, all twelve of us agree. Taken together, we have led the U.S. Department of Transportation for over 35 years. One of us was there on day one, at its founding. We’ve served seven presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, including Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Suffice it to say, we’ve been around the block. We probably helped pave it. So it is with some knowledge and experience that we can write: Never in our nation’s history has America’s transportation system been on a more unsustainable course. In recent years, Congress has largely funded transportation in fits and starts. Federal funding bills once sustained our transportation system for up to six years, but over the past five years, Congress has passed 27 short-term measures. Today, we are more than a decade past the last six-year funding measure. This is no way to run a railroad, fill a pothole, or repair a bridge. In fact, the unpredictability about when, or if, funding will come has caused states to delay or cancel projects altogether. The result has been an enormous infrastructure deficit – a nationwide backlog of repairing and rebuilding. Right now, there are so many structurally deficient bridges in America that, if you lined them up end-to-end, they’d stretch from Boston to Miami. What’s worse, the American people are paying for this inaction in a number of ways. Bad roads, for example, are costing individual drivers hundreds of dollars a year due to side effects like extra wear-and-tear on their vehicles and time spent in traffic. Simply put, the United States of America is in a united state of disrepair, a crisis made worse by the fact that, over the next generation, more will be demanded of our transportation system than ever before. By 2050, this country will be home to up to 100 million new people. And we’ll have to move 14 billion additional tons of freight, almost twice what we move now. Without increasing investment in transportation, we won’t be able to meet these challenges. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, we need to invest $1.8 trillion by 2020 just to bring our surface transportation infrastructure to an adequate level. So, what America needs is to break this cycle of governing crisis-to-crisis, only to enact a stopgap measure at the last moment. We need to make a commitment to the American people and the American economy. There is hope on this front. Some leaders in Washington, including those at the U.S. Department of Transportation, are stepping forward with ideas for paying for our roads, rails, and transit systems for the long-term. While we – the twelve transportation secretaries – may differ on the details of these proposals, there is one essential goal with which all twelve of us agree: We cannot continue funding our transportation with measures that are short-term and short of the funding we need. On this, we are of one mind. And Congress should be, too. Adequately funding our transportation system won’t be an easy task for our nation’s lawmakers. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Consensus has been brokered before. Until recently, Congress understood that, as America grows, so must our investments in transportation. And for more than half a century, they voted for that principle – and increased funding – with broad, bipartisan majorities in both houses. We believe they can, and should, do so again.
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