News Digest
FRA Issues Safety Advisory for Bridge Workers.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a Safety Advisory to remind railroads, contractors and railroad bridge workers of safety practices intended to prevent accidents and casualties to employees. FRA regulations require standards related to scaffolding and for railroads and railroad contractors to provide, and employees to use, fall protection and personal protective equipment, including head, foot, eye, and face equipment for employees as they work on railroad bridges. The Safety Advisory focuses attention on the unsafe workplace behavior preliminarily found to be contributing factors in two incidents occurring this year during which workers fell from bridges, resulting in one fatality. In 2008, another worker fell under similar circumstances. In each of these three incidents, the bridge worker was not using a personal fall arrest system and fell when stepping on an unsecured walkway or platform grating. The responsible railroads, contractors, and subcontractors had also not erected a safety net system.
FRA Issues Final Rule to Protect Railroad Roadway Workers.
The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a final rule that will help protect railroad construction workers from passing trains. The rule amends existing Roadway Worker Protection regulations to require that railroads adopt safety procedures to protect workers from the movement of trains or other rail equipment from nearby adjacent tracks. The new safety procedures generally require all affected work and equipment movements to stop, and for each roadway worker to occupy a predetermined safe place upon receiving a notification or warning when there is an approaching train or other on-track equipment movement on an adjacent track. Track safety job briefings will be expanded to include information about the new rule.
BTS Issues Directive for 2012 On-Time Reporting.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today issued the annual directive detailing the requirements for the reporting of airline on-time data for 2012. BTS will receive reports from 16 airlines next year, 15 that are required to report and one that will report voluntarily. Virgin America will be required to report for the first time in 2012. Atlantic Southeast Airlines and Mesa Airlines will no longer be required to report but Mesa will report voluntarily. Airlines with revenue of more than 1 percent of scheduled-service domestic passenger revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, 2011 are required to report. The directive also includes the list of 29 airports with 1 percent of the nation's total domestic scheduled-service passenger enplanements for the 12-month period ended June 30, 2011 for which monthly on-time reports are required. The list is unchanged from 2011. Although all reporting airlines voluntarily report on all domestic airports they serve, these 29 airports are listed in the detailed airport tables of the Department’s Air Travel Consumer Report and on BTS’ major airport on-time rankings. For the complete list of carriers required to report data in 2012 and the airports for which reports are required, see Technical Directives - On-Time Reporting.
PHMSA HAZMAT Performance Packaging Test Results Now Available
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) today announced that performance packaging manufacture, design qualification and production test results will, for the first time, be made available to the public. PHMSA tests packagings to ensure it they meets safe shipping standards. The PackSys database is an online information warehouse that contains all United Nations performance packaging that has been selected by the agency for compliance validations testing in accordance with the Hazardous Materials Regulations.