ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of public policy, law, and regulations for securing the US rail system after the September 11, 2001, attacks on airlines. In the wake of 9/11, the US government, in collaboration with the rail freight, and passenger operators, worked to develop a methodology for determining risks, threats, vulnerabilities, and associated programs to ensure the secure operations of the expansive US rail network. Major factors examined in our research include the following:
The decentralized nature of the North American rail network, with freight operations in the private sector (seven major and several hundred terminal and short line companies) and most passenger operations run by public sector entities
The dominant position of airline security in the legislative and administrative agendas post-9/11 and its effects on the incremental and episodic development of rail security policy
The separation of policy and regulatory authority between agencies charged with implementing safety and security programs
The critical relationship of rail freight and other modes of transportation due to global trade and intermodal shipments
The historical role of US railroads in handling hazardous and dangerous cargoes
Creation of an analytical framework that captures both terrorist security threats and the requirement to adopt an all-hazards approach
The importance of information-sharing arrangements between different levels of government and between public and private organizations
The lack of empirical data to support risk analysis and the difficulty of factoring information from catastrophic events worldwide to the US situation (for example, lessons learned from such examples as the London and Madrid bombings or terrorist events in South Asia and Russia)
The chapter concludes by assessing how the assessment of risk developed in a politically charged and administratively complex environment relates to the reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety approach and how effective it may be in preventing catastrophic events to affect the US rail network.
