Congressman Peter DeFazio, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a Democrat, recently announced that his committee would ask the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the impact that precision scheduling is having on workers at railroads, customers that ship on railroads, and passenger railroads.
DeFazio says he is concerned that precision scheduling puts the bottom line first, which he says will lead to more train accidents as well as unhappy customers and overworked employees, potentially jeopardizing the long-run health of the railroad industry. However, none of these objections stand up to the least bit of scrutiny: The real objection is simply that precision scheduling may eliminate some rail jobs over time. PSR is an effort by railroads to increase the capacity of their lines by operating on a fixed, predictable schedule. One way railroads achieve this is by running longer trains, which increase a railroad’s carrying capacity: Two 100-car trains need less spacing than four 50-car trains, so more cars can be accommodated. Longer trains also reduce labor costs, since fewer trains means fewer crews are needed. Given that railroads finance their own infrastructure, controlling costs is crucial for the industry to compete against other modes of transportation.
Precision scheduling also imposes fixed schedules on shippers, which makes it easier for railroads to schedule their tracks at or near full capacity. Union labor objects to this change as well, as it allows railroads to reduce overtime. Train crews cannot work more than 12 hours a day, and a railroad with an unpredictable schedule often needs to stop a train, bring in new engineers and conductors, and put up the workers in a hotel to get their required rest before returning to their job. Staff get paid for the downtime away from home. A predictable schedule would allow railroads to schedule workers on more out-and-back routes that have them working a full day and ending up back home, reducing these spells away from home—as well as their overtime pay. Although such practices reduce fatigue and improve quality of life, many are loath to lose their away-time pay—belying their insistence that safety is their main concern.
DeFazio asked the GAO to study this very same issue two years ago, and it reported that it did not have the data to do the analysis he wanted. The Federal Railroad Administration has said that the data it has collected does not show that safety has been affected by these changes, and previous studies take issue with the assertion by the engineer unions that more staffing is necessary for longer trains.
https://fortune.com/2021/07/21/peter-defazio-precision-scheduled-railroading-problems/
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