Congress called on the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to sponsor this study of the U.S. freight railroad industry’s economic regulation, including its purpose and performance in ensuring that railroads can earn enough revenue to continue to operate and invest and that rail shippers can obtain adequate service at reasonable rates.1 The study charge specifically calls for recommendations on the future role of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in overseeing and regulating the service levels and rate offerings of railroads, particularly as they become revenue adequate. STB was established in 1995 to succeed the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which had been responsible for administering the federal railroad regulatory program when the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 substantially eased or eliminated many long-standing regulations on railroad pricing and operations. To the detriment of , these regulations hindered the ability of the private railroads to earn enough revenues to invest, innovate, and become efficient. Implementation of the act’s reforms was quickly followed by the restructuring and revitalization of the freight railroads, which shed large amounts of excess, uneconomic capacity; substantially increased their productivity; and introduced innovations that conferred large benefits on shippers in the form of improved service offerings and lower rates. By the late 1990s, the Staggers Rail Act had succeeded in spurring the development of a modern and more efficient railroad industry that was better able to compete with trucks, maintain and expand capacity, and respond flexibly to shippers’ needs with less regulatory oversight and control. Examinations of rate and service levels in the post-Staggers railroad industry since 2000 find that rates have been rising in real terms and that service disturbances have been episodic and occasionally widespread, particularly after abrupt increases in freight demand and bouts of severe weather. Rising rates have coincided with a slowdown in productivity gains—since many of the largest opportunities for improvements after deregulation had been exploited—and by volatility in input prices, particularly for fuel. Complaints about service offerings, including assertions of chronic unreliability, have been voiced by some shippers, particularly those using common carrier service, which remains subject to regulatory oversight. However, trends and patterns in common carrier service cannot be readily discerned because of a lack of sufficiently detailed data on most aspects of service quality.
Modernizing Freight Rail Regulation
2015
199 pages
Report
No indication
English
Railroad Transportation , Road Transportation , Transportation & Traffic Planning , Economic Studies , Regional Administration & Planning , Transportation , Administration and Planning , Modernizing , Freight rail operations , Regulation , Performance , Implementations , Trends , Patterns , Freight shippers , Recommendations , Federal Railroad Regulatory Program , Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
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