Examining Best Practices for Keeping Trains on the Tracks: Integrating Technology in the Rail Network

Railroads have deployed Automated Track Inspection (ATI) to help identify certain types of track defects. Since the 1970s, a type of ATI technology called Track Geometry Measurement Systems (TGMS) has been used to supplement track inspections conducted by human inspectors. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) regulates 26 types of track defects under its Track Safety Standards (TSS; 49 CFR 213). Of these, TGMS can identify six. While TGMS excels at detecting specific geometric defects, it cannot detect many other safety issues including damaged ties, ballast and drainage problems, signs of ground movement, missing fasteners, and other defects that contribute to potentially dangerous derailments. Experienced inspectors, however, are capable of identifying all categories of FRA-regulated defects through visual track inspections. Combining both ATI and the expertise of human inspectors therefore produces the safest outcome for the rail network. 

BMWED explained in its official comments filed in Docket FRA-2025-0059 that “Track Inspectors do not just detect; they evaluate contemporaneously with inspecting. Reducing the frequency of human track inspection while increasing the frequency of machine inspections is not just substituting machine ‘eyes’ for actual eyes; it is also eliminating on-site assessment of what is observed.” BMWED further emphasized that Track Inspectors “exercise judgment as to problems and potential problems in real time, which the machines cannot do” (BMWED Comments in Response to AAR Petition for Waiver, Docket No. FRA-2025-0059, pp. 6-7.).