FRA Response to DOT OIG Draft Report on Safety Data Reporting

FRA Response to OIG Draft Report on Safety Data Reporting

As indicated in FRA’s Management Response to the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Draft Report on Safety Data Reporting, FRA concurred with recommendations 3 through 7, as written.  As also indicated in FRA’s Management Response, FRA plans to complete actions to address these recommendations by the following dates: recommendation 3 – December 15, 2017; recommendations 4 and 5 – January 15, 2018; recommendation 6 – February 15, 2018; and recommendation 7 – May 15, 2018.

FRA partially concurred with OIG’s recommendations 1 and 2. Regarding recommendation 1, as FRA noted in its Management Response, updating or revising the FRA Guide for Accident/Incident Reporting (Guide) requires FRA to amend its regulation (49 CFR Part 225), which incorporates the Guide by reference. Because updating any regulation typically takes several years to complete, FRA agreed to take an alternate action to supplement the current Guide, which is searchable and contains an index. FRA proposed to develop questions and answers (Q&As) to address issues FRA audits have identified and issues OIG identified.  FRA agreed to post the Q&As on its Web site and publicize their availability to inspectors, specialists, attorneys and railroad reporting officers. FRA plans to complete and post the Q&A’s by December 15, 2017.   Additionally, subsequent to FRA’s Management Response to the OIG, FRA’s RSAC agreed to consider a task statement to update the Guide, a process that will likely take several years to complete.  Regarding recommendation 2, in its Management Response FRA noted that railroads, not FRA, are responsible for identifying their employees’ training needs. As an alternate action, FRA agreed to increase the availability of accident reporting training materials. Such materials might include Web-accessible training, recordings of live training sessions, and training Webinars. FRA plans to complete these actions by December 15, 2017.