U.S. Department 

of Transportation 

Federal Railroad 

Administration 

Office of Research, 

Development and Technology 

Washington, DC 20590 

DOT/FRA/ORD-21/30 Final Report | September 2021

Lessons from the Railroad Information Sharing 

Environment (RISE) Pilot Project

Data in 

Rail 

lntonnation 

Sllalqf 

En.,,;,,· INllllienl, 

Safety out 
i 

NOTICE 

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the 

Department of Transportation in the interest of information 

exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for 

its contents or use thereof. Any opinions, findings and 

conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material do not 

necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States 

Government, nor does mention of trade names, commercial 

products, or organizations imply endorsement by the United States 

Government. The United States Government assumes no liability 

for the content or use of the material contained in this document. 

NOTICE 

The United States Government does not endorse products or 

manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers' names appear herein 

solely because they are considered essential to the objective of this 

report. 
i 

REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved 

OMB No. 0704-0188 

The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data 

sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other 

aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information 

Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision 

of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.

PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS.

1. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY) 2. REPORT TYPE

Technical Report

3. DATES COVERED (From - To)

May 2019 – March 2021

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Lessons from the Railroad Information Sharing Environment (RISE) Pilot Project

5a. CONTRACT NUMBER

5b. GRANT NUMBER

5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER

6. AUTHOR(S)

Jordan Multer: 0000-0002-7818-110X

Scott Gabree: 0000-0002-1834-6910

5d. PROJECT NUMBER

RR04AB

5e. TASK NUMBER

TK296

5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER

7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

55 Broadway

Cambridge, MA. 02142

8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION 

REPORT NUMBER 

DOT-VNTSC-FRA-21-05

9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

U.S. Department of Transportation 

Federal Railroad Administration

Office of Railroad Policy and Development

Office of Research, Development and Technology

Washington, DC 20590

10. SPONSOR/MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S)

11. SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT 

NUMBER(S) 

DOT/FRA/ORD-21/30

12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

This document is available to the public through the FRA website.

13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

COR: Starr Kidda

14. ABSTRACT

This research documents lessons learned from the development of the Railroad Information Sharing Environment (RISE), a voluntary 

partnership for sharing safety sensitive information among multiple railroad industry stakeholders for the purpose of identifying, 

evaluating, and managing safety risks. RISE provides a secure platform for sharing safety sensitive information using a trusted third 

party or steward. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) conducted a demonstration project to test the feasibility and challenges of 

standing up a process by which the railroad industry stakeholders could share safety sensitive information in an aggregated form that 

provide a new way for managing safety.

15. SUBJECT TERMS

Railroad Information Sharing Environment, RISE, data trust, human factors, railroad, pilot project, University of Maryland’s 

Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory, UMD CATT Lab, safety, voluntary partnership

16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF 

ABSTRACT 

18. NUMBER 

OF 

PAGES

49

19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON

Jordan Multer a. REPORT b. ABSTRACT c. THIS PAGE

19b. TELEPHONE NUMBER (Include area code)

(617) 494-2573

Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8/98)

Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39.18
ii

METRIC/ENGLISH CONVERSION FACTORS

ENGLISH TO METRIC METRIC TO ENGLISH

LENGTH (APPROXIMATE) LENGTH (APPROXIMATE)

1 inch (in) = 2.5 centimeters (cm) 1 millimeter (mm) = 0.04 inch (in) 

1 foot (ft) = 30 centimeters (cm) 1 centimeter (cm) = 0.4 inch (in) 

1 yard (yd) = 0.9 meter (m) 1 meter (m) = 3.3 feet (ft)

1 mile (mi) = 1.6 kilometers (km) 1 meter (m) = 1.1 yards (yd)

1 kilometer (km) = 0.6 mile (mi)

AREA (APPROXIMATE) AREA (APPROXIMATE)

1 square inch (sq in, in2) = 6.5 square centimeters (cm2) 1 square centimeter (cm2) = 0.16 square inch (sq in, in2) 

1 square foot (sq ft, ft2) = 0.09 square meter (m2) 1 square meter (m2) = 1.2 square yards (sq yd, yd2)

1 square yard (sq yd, yd2) = 0.8 square meter (m2) 1 square kilometer (km2) = 0.4 square mile (sq mi, mi2) 

1 square mile (sq mi, mi2) = 2.6 square kilometers (km2) 10,000 square meters (m2) = 1 hectare (ha) = 2.5 acres 

1 acre = 0.4 hectare (he) = 4,000 square meters (m2) 

MASS - WEIGHT (APPROXIMATE) MASS - WEIGHT (APPROXIMATE)

1 ounce (oz) = 28 grams (gm) 1 gram (gm) = 0.036 ounce (oz)

1 pound (lb) = 0.45 kilogram (kg) 1 kilogram (kg) = 2.2 pounds (lb)

1 short ton = 2,000 pounds (lb) = 0.9 tonne (t) 1 tonne (t) =

=

1,000 kilograms (kg) 

1.1 short tons

VOLUME (APPROXIMATE) VOLUME (APPROXIMATE)

1 teaspoon (tsp) = 5 milliliters (ml) 1 milliliter (ml) = 0.03 fluid ounce (fl oz)

1 tablespoon (tbsp) = 15 milliliters (ml) 1 liter (l) = 2.1 pints (pt) 

1 fluid ounce (fl oz) = 30 milliliters (ml) 1 liter (l) = 1.06 quarts (qt) 

1 cup (c) = 0.24 liter (l) 1 liter (l) = 0.26 gallon (gal) 

1 pint (pt) = 0.47 liter (l)

1 quart (qt) = 0.96 liter (l)

1 gallon (gal) = 3.8 liters (l) 

1 cubic foot (cu ft, ft3) = 0.03 cubic meter (m3) 1 cubic meter (m3) = 36 cubic feet (cu ft, ft3) 

1 cubic yard (cu yd, yd3) = 0.76 cubic meter (m3) 1 cubic meter (m3) = 1.3 cubic yards (cu yd, yd3)

TEMPERATURE (EXACT) TEMPERATURE (EXACT)

[(x-32)(5/9)] °F = y °C [(9/5) y + 32] °C = x °F

QUICK INCH - CENTIMETER LENGTH CONVERSION

0 1 2 3 4 5

Inches

Centimeters 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 987 1110 1312

QUICK FAHRENHEIT - CELSIUS TEMPERATURE CONVERSIO

 -40° -22° -4° 14° 32° 50° 68° 86° 104° 122° 140° 158° 176° 194° 212°

 

°F

 °C -40° -30° -20° -10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40° 50° 60° 70° 80° 90° 100°

For more exact and or other conversion factors, see NIST Miscellaneous Publication 286, Units of Weights and 

Measures. Price $2.50 SD Catalog No. C13 10286 Updated 6/17/98
iii

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the collaboration with Mark Franz and Ignacio Tous from the 

University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory (UMD CATT

Lab) to implement the initial demonstration of Railroad Information Sharing Environment (RISE). Their 

efforts were instrumental to the development of the platform for collecting and managing the safety data 

used in this project. The authors also thank the five passenger railroads for their participation in this 

demonstration to learn how to share and make more effective use of safety data to improve safety across 

the railroad industry. The authors would also like to thank Kim Davies-Schrils and Juna Snow for their 

work identifying stakeholder interests in this demonstration.
iv

Contents

Executive Summary........................................................................................................................ 1

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 2

1.1 Background ................................................................................................................. 2

1.2 Objectives.................................................................................................................... 3

1.3 Overall Approach ........................................................................................................ 3

1.4 Scope ........................................................................................................................... 4

1.5 Organization of the Report.......................................................................................... 4

2. The Background of RISE ............................................................................................ 5

2.1 What is RISE............................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Emergence of RISE and Similar Initiatives ................................................................ 5

2.3 Data Trusts ................................................................................................................ 14

2.4 Demonstration Objectives ......................................................................................... 15

3. Lessons Learned ........................................................................................................ 17

3.1 Context ...................................................................................................................... 17

3.2 Trust and Stakeholder Engagement ........................................................................... 20

3.3 Trade-offs Between Data Sharing and Data Protection ............................................ 21

3.4 Selecting the Initial Topic ......................................................................................... 21

3.5 Data Wrangling and Presentation .............................................................................. 23

3.6 Lessons Learned from the RISE Pilot Project ........................................................... 23

3.7 Opportunities Moving Forward ................................................................................. 27

3.8 Next Steps .................................................................................................................. 32

4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 33

5. References ................................................................................................................. 36

Appendix A. Rail Information Sharing Environment (RISE) Pilot Project Charter ..................... 37
v 

Illustrations

Figure 1. Railroad fatalities by population impacted ...................................................................... 3

Figure 2. ASIAS governance structure ........................................................................................... 8

Figure 3. PARTS governance structure .......................................................................................... 9

Figure 4. RISE pilot sequence of activities ................................................................................... 13

Figure 5. RISE pilot governance structure .................................................................................... 13

Figure 6. RISE pilot timeline ........................................................................................................ 18

Figure 7. Identifying the topic to study ......................................................................................... 21
vi 

Tables

Table 1. RISE pilot guiding principles ......................................................................................... 19

Table 2. Nine study topics identified ............................................................................................ 22

Table 3. Summary of responses to demonstration questions ........................................................ 33
1 

Executive Summary

This research documents lessons learned from the development of the Railroad Information 

Sharing Environment (RISE), a voluntary partnership for sharing safety sensitive information 

among multiple railroad industry stakeholders for identifying, evaluating, and managing safety 

risks. RISE provides a secure platform for sharing safety sensitive information using a trusted 

third party or steward. From May 2019 to March 2021, the Federal Railroad Administration 

(FRA) conducted a pilot project to test the feasibility and challenges of a process by which the 

railroad industry stakeholders could share safety sensitive information in an aggregated form that 

provide a new way for managing safety. Researchers conducted this research at the University of 

Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory (UMD CATT Lab). 

What distinguishes RISE from other programs or mechanisms for sharing safety sensitive 

information is its focus on pooling safety data from multiple stakeholders who can decide how 

the safety data will be used. This pooling of data may allow for individual stakeholders to 

investigate safety concerns for which they have insufficient data to identify trends or patterns.

This pilot involved several steps to test the feasibility of RISE. FRA invited a small group of 

railroad stakeholders to participate, including Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, 

based on their previous experience sharing safety sensitive data with each other. The 

participants/stakeholders set up a charter that described a governance structure for how the group 

would operate and make decisions regarding the use of the data. The stakeholders identified a 

variety of potential topics to investigate and sources of data to support the investigations while 

FRA procured a third party to serve as the trusted party to collect and manage the collected data. 

After the completion of the contract, the third party worked with the stakeholders to select the 

topics for investigation.

The stakeholders selected two topics both involving the benchmarking of safety data: personal 

injuries and operations rule violations. The third party spent several months reviewing and 

collecting the data and standardizing the data so that the data could be aggregated. Next, the third 

party created a series of charts for the stakeholders to view to support benchmarking and 

analysis. The third party provided the login and password to access this information and 

showcased how to view the charts, which were displayed in a series of dashboards using the 

software program Tableau. Each stakeholder was interviewed to solicit their opinions about the 

value of the RISE process and the use of the data for each topic. 

Overall, all the stakeholders indicated that the RISE pilot project was worth the time and effort to 

share safety sensitive data. They uniformly indicated that this initiative should continue and 

expand. The ability to benchmark their data against peers provided valuable information to 

inform decision making around the use of personal injuries. The lack of data collected for 

operating rules made this data less valuable for benchmarking and analysis by the stakeholders. 

Based on this experience, authors documented a variety of the opportunities to improve and 

expand RISE. These opportunities go beyond the use of RISE as a data trust and suggest ways to 

enable railroads to learn more effectively from the collection of safety data.
2 

1. Introduction

This research documents lessons learned from the development of a data trust for the railroad 

industry. A data trust is a process for sharing safety sensitive information among multiple 

railroad industry stakeholders for the purpose of identifying, evaluating, and managing safety 

risks. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) conducted a pilot project to test the feasibility 

and challenges of standing up a data trust.

1.1 Background

Several factors contribute to FRA’s desire to develop establish a data trust. First, FRA data 

suggests that safety, as measured by fatalities, has improved as a whole over the past 40 years, 

however, these improvements have plateaued since 2011 and in some cases fatalities have 

increased as shown in Figure 1.

1

 Further reducing accidents, injuries and harm to railroad 

systems may require new strategies. 

Railroad operations are growing increasingly complex. New technologies (e.g., energy 

management systems and Positive Train Control) increase the level of automation in railroad 

operations. Changes in how railroads operate (e.g., Precision Scheduled Railroading) change the 

use of employees, equipment, and infrastructure. These new technologies and operating practices 

have created interdependencies that make it more difficult to identify the causal mechanisms that 

contribute to safety and failure. No one person or group has a complete picture of how the 

railroad industry operates; perspectives from multiple disciplines must be integrated to fully 

understand safety.

Bringing these multiple perspectives together in the form of people from different disciplines, 

multiple railroads, vendors, regulators, and labor representatives provides an opportunity to 

better identify, evaluate and manage railroad safety. The Railroad Information Sharing 

Environment (RISE) pilot project described in this report tests the feasibility of this concept.

FRA contracted with the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation 

Technology Laboratory (UMD CATT Lab) as an independent steward to receive, store, manage 

and support the analysis of safety sensitive information that railroad stakeholders agree to share.

This concept is referred to as a “data trust,” as the stakeholders agree to trust a third party with 

the management of potentially sensitive data. The stakeholders identify safety concerns to pursue 

and work collaboratively to identify strategies to address those safety concerns. While this 

concept has been successfully adopted in other domains (i.e., aviation), the challenges to 

successful adoption by the railroad industry have yet to be identified. This report describes the 

process of identifying and addressing those challenges. 

1 Data from Overview Reports (last accessed May 20, 2021). Note that “trespass fatalities” do not include incidents 

that were determined to be a suicide, these data are captured and presented separately by FRA.
3 

Figure 1. Railroad fatalities by population impacted

1.2 Objectives

This research evaluated the feasibility of establishing a data trust in the railroad environment. 

The RISE pilot project examined the extent to which FRA and stakeholders could: 

1. Create a trusted environment in which railroad stakeholders with a diverse set of interests 

can share safety sensitive information for improving safety

2. Develop a charter and governance structure that serves the stakeholders’ interests

3. Identify the requirements to enable UMD CATT Lab to provide a secure environment 

and to receive and manage stakeholders’ data

4. Identify how multiple forms of data from multiple stakeholders are successfully 

managed, integrated, and analyzed 

5. Learn how to bring together multiple sources of safety data that can inform insights that 

might not otherwise take place 

1.3 Overall Approach

The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe) in collaboration with FRA, several 

passenger railroads, and a third party demonstrated the feasibility of adopting a platform for 

sharing safety sensitive information and addressing one or more safety concerns. FRA procured 

UMD CATT Lab to serve as an independent steward for receiving, storing, managing, and 

analyzing the safety sensitive information. Volpe researchers met with stakeholders, developed a 

charter documenting how RISE would be used and facilitated meetings to identify and analyze 

several safety concerns. Volpe documented issues that were raised during the RISE pilot project 

and how they were addressed. This report documents those issues. 

Grade Crossing 

Fatalities

Trespass Fatalities

Employee 

Fatalities 0

200

400

600

800

1000

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

Fatalities

Year

Railroad Fatalities by Population Impacted
4 

1.4 Scope

This report covers the RISE pilot project. 

1.5 Organization of the Report

This report is organized into three sections. Section 2 provides background information on the 

evolution of data trusts within the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the conception of 

RISE within FRA and how it developed. Section 3 describes the lessons learned from 

demonstrating the RISE pilot concept. Section 4 provides some concluding remarks and 

recommendations for next steps. 
5 

2. The Background of RISE

This section describes how the idea for RISE emerged and describes how it operated for the 

demonstration project.

2.1 What is RISE

RISE is a voluntary initiative in which stakeholders bring multiple data sources together in one 

place to address a common interest in safety. RISE provides a secure platform for sharing safety 

sensitive information using a trusted third party/steward. RISE stakeholders set up a charter that 

describes the governance structure for how the group operates and makes decisions regarding the 

use of the data.

RISE stakeholders used a consensus-based approach to decide what safety issues to study and 

what data to provide to support these studies. The studies can involve: 

• Identifying emerging risks

• Examining an existing vulnerability 

• Assessing mitigations

• Monitoring known risks

• Benchmarking performance 

What distinguishes RISE from other programs or mechanisms for sharing safety sensitive 

information is its focus on pooling safety data from multiple stakeholders and the involvement of 

these stakeholders in deciding the purpose for which the safety data will be used. This pooling of 

data may allow for individual stakeholders to investigate safety concerns for which they have 

insufficient data to identify trends or patterns.

The data is stored and managed by a third party so that the regulator does not have access to the 

raw data. RISE provides an opportunity to evaluate multiple forms of pooled data that are not 

available to the stakeholders, individually. It provides a picture that is unavailable through any 

other safety program supported by FRA or the industry. 

2.2 Emergence of RISE and Similar Initiatives

In transportation, there is a history of using data trusts for the collection of safety sensitive 

information that normally goes unreported, such as information about near misses or close call 

events (e.g., ASRS, Confidential Close Call Reporting System [C3

RS], Mariner Safety Research 

Initiative [MSRI], and Safe Outer Continental Shelf Reporting System [SafeOCS]) or for 

aggregating information across an industry (e.g., Federal Aviation Administration’s [FAA] 

Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing [ASIAS]) to obtain a more holistic, crossindustry view of a safety concern. 

The desire for data trusts like RISE within the transportation domain emerged from several 

factors. One factor involves the increasing amounts of data that transportation operators and 

regulators are collecting. These new sources of safety data are often segregated within 

organizational silos and may not be combined for analysis. Pooling this safety data provides new 

opportunities to learn how failures occur and safety can improve.
6 

A second factor involves an acknowledgement that safety within many transportation domains 

has improved to the point where it is becoming increasingly challenging to continue reducing 

accidents with traditional methods. While trends toward safer operations is positive, much of the 

more straightforward solutions have already been implemented; this makes it more challenging 

to identify how to further improve safety using existing methods for understanding why unsafe 

events occur. 

A third factor involves the predominant approach to accident reduction in which analysts break 

down the source of the problem into its elemental parts (i.e., a reductionist approach). The 

increasing use of technology, changes in organizational practices, and regulatory reforms 

improved safety while also increasing the complexity of transportation systems. This complexity 

makes it more challenging to untangle the causal factors that contribute to accidents. This 

complexity suggests that no one person or organizational unit has a holistic view of the system. 

A fourth factor involves a reluctance to share safety information outside of the organizations that 

collect it. Organizations may be reluctant to share information that, if exposed could harm their 

reputation, create legal hazards, or competitive threats. RISE and similar initiatives provide a 

governance mechanism to address the reluctance to share this information. Involving UMD 

CATT Lab to manage data aides in fostering confidence that organizations can share data safely

with one another. This is discussed in more detail in Section 2.3. 

2.2.1 FAA ASIAS Program

Within the United States, aviation was the first transportation sector to use a data trust. The FAA, 

in cooperation with airlines, labor unions, suppliers, and other interested parties formed a publicprivate partnership called the ASIAS program in 2007 (Office of the Inspector General, 2013). 

The FAA formed the ASIAS to support a better understanding of why accidents were occurring. 

It was a natural outgrowth of the increasing collaboration and information sharing that aviation 

industry stakeholders began during the previous decade. Programs like ASRS for confidentially 

reporting near miss events and Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) which involved a 

public-private partnership for analyzing the factors that contribute to accidents provided an 

environment in which stakeholders were comfortable working with each other to solve system 

safety challenges.

FAA formed a division responsible for the development and sustainment of voluntary safety 

programs. In addition to ASRS, these programs included: 

• Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP)

• Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) 

• Internal Evaluation Program (IEP)

• Line Operations Safety Audit (LOSA) 

• Voluntary Disclosure Reporting Program (VDRP)

These programs provide incentives for collecting and reporting safety related information to 

provide actionable insights to improve training, operational procedures, maintenance and 

engineering procedures and air traffic control procedures (Federal Aviation Administration, 

2020). 
7 

FAA started with a small group of stakeholders to build trust among the members in sharing 

information before embarking on addressing specific safety concerns. This small group worked 

together to discuss the value of pooling their data and consider options for how this could be 

done before moving on to develop the program structure (W. Randolph, personal 

communication, May 19, 2019). 

The stakeholders developed a governance structure addressing data access, data sharing, data 

protections (e.g., legal protections, data security, and privacy protection), how the information 

would be used, and how decisions would be made. The governance structure evolved over time 

as the initiative matured and the stakeholders developed trust in each other and saw valuable 

outcomes. The group discarded program elements that did not work and adapted the initiative to 

meet the needs of the stakeholders. The group developed a charter or Memorandum of 

Understanding (MOU) that documented the principles that would govern stakeholders’ behavior 

and the governance structure. This MOU evolved over time as desires for the use of the system 

changed and the members learned what contributed to an effective data trust. 

Figure 2 shows the governance structure for ASIAS. The structure consists of two bodies, an 

executive board (EB) and an Issues Analysis Team (IAT). Participating stakeholders provide 

members to participate on both bodies. The EB is chaired by government employees and 

industry stakeholders. The board engages in a variety of activities including:

• Selects the topics stakeholders will devote resources to such as human resources and data

for the stakeholders to collect

• Approves how the information will be shared among the stakeholders such as documents 

to be shared among stakeholders or a wider audience 

The IAT consists of one or more working groups that address a specific study topic identified by 

the EB. This group consists of a larger number of participating stakeholders.

A third party serves as an independent data steward to receive, store, analyze and present 

information on behalf of the stakeholders. The independent steward is a member of the IAT and 

participates with industry stakeholders to jointly analyze safety concerns. Stakeholders own the 

data they provide to the independent steward, and the independent steward acts as a fiduciary to 

securely store safety data. The independent steward cleans and integrates the pooled data to 

enable the analysis of data in ways that could not otherwise occur. Data are presented in a way 

that allows for safety insights to be gained while not allowing for the identification of data from 

any single stakeholder. Examples of the data provided to the independent steward included: 

• Proprietary data (e.g., avionics and manufacturer data)

• Safety data (e.g., operational errors and deviations, and runway incursions) 

• Air traffic information (e.g., traffic management delays and airport configurations) 

• Other information (e.g., weather and Bureau of Transportation statistics)
8 

Figure 2. ASIAS governance structure

2.2.2 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) – 

Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety (PARTS) 

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) effort to develop an 

environment for pooling safety data, named the Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic 

Safety (PARTS), began in 2017 as a pilot project. The project grew out of a desire to work more 

proactively with industry to cooperatively solve safety problems. FAA’s ASIAS program served 

as a model for NHTSA to adapt to solve highway related safety concerns (J. Kolly, Personal 

Communication, April 4, 2019). The partnership was also intended to better understand potential 

safety implications from the adoption of rapidly changing technologies (Kolly, J., 2019). 

The complexity of these technologies could be better understood through the pooling of data 

from multiple sources than from traditional safety assessment approaches. This approach offered 

the opportunity to gain insights from benchmarking and aggregation of data that the partners 

could not obtain otherwise. 

The effort began with NHTSA seeking potential stakeholders to join the partnership. The first 

year was spent identifying and persuading key stakeholders of the partnership’s value and 

building trust that proprietary information could be shared among potential competitors to solve 
9 

safety concerns without causing harm to their position within the industry. Unlike the aviation 

industry, automotive companies compete based on safety features.

The PARTS governance structure was similar to the ASIAS program, but simpler in its structure, 

since it was set up as a pilot project to assess the value of this idea for the highway safety 

domain. In the pilot phase, the number of stakeholders is more limited, thus all stakeholders can 

participate in executive decision making. Figure 3 displays the governance structure. The 

governing body was made of industry stakeholders, NHTSA and an independent steward 

procured by NHTSA to receive, store, manage, and analyze the data on behalf of the 

participating stakeholders. As a part of building trust among the stakeholders, each member had 

an equal voice in decision-making. To remove itself from a position of privilege, NHTSA used 

Volpe to facilitate and manage the pilot project. 

Figure 3. PARTS governance structure

PARTS stakeholders identified a single topic, automatic emergency braking (AEB), to address 

and for which the stakeholders provided data. Phase 1 of the demonstration began in 2018 with 

six original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) participating and completed its work in 2019 

(U.S. Department of Transportation, 2020). The U.S. Department of Transportation announced 

in January 2020 that NHTSA will move forward with Phase 2 of the pilot project. This phase 

will address a second study addressing driver assistance technologies for reducing crashes.

2.2.3 Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administrator (PHMSA) – Voluntary 

Information Sharing (VIS) 

The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) formed a Federal 

advisory panel to recommend options for the development of a Voluntary Information-Sharing 
10 

System (VIS). VIS’s goal is to encourage collaboration and improve inspection feedback and 

information sharing to improve risk analysis associated with gas transmission and hazardous 

liquid pipeline facility integrity (Voluntary Information-Sharing System Working Group, 2019). 

Congress mandated that PHMSA establish an advisory committee to recommend collaborative, 

voluntary sharing of information related to gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipeline 

facilities.

The advisory panel offered the following benefits for creating a VIS:

• Serve as a trusted repository of high-volume, high-quality data and information 

• Increase public safety and decrease environmental risk

• Improve operators’ awareness of potential threats and risks to their facilities that they 

might not have previously encountered 

• Improve responses to new threats 

• Improve understanding of existing and emerging technologies and potentially accelerate 

development and demonstration of new technology 

• Improve effectiveness of technologies to identify specific threats and to enhance an 

operator’s decision-making

• Provide technical support for service providers’ technology investments to improve 

technology performance

• Determine gaps in pipeline information to drive continuous improvement 

• Improve communication between the industry, the public, and pipeline safety 

stakeholders through greater transparency and relationships built on trust 

• Provide a greater understanding among operators on applying rate-payers’ funds to 

reduce risk

The advisory panel made many recommendations for the establishment of a voluntary 

information-sharing system. The recommendations included the following: 

1. Congress should authorize and stand up a VIS including a technology platform and 

include participation by pipeline operators, PHMSA and other stakeholders. 

2. Congress should enact legislation to provide confidentiality, non-punitive, and other legal 

protections to pipeline operators to participate in the VIS.

3. Information sharing should include gas distribution system data in the VIS program to 

significantly reduce industry incidents nationwide, across all three key industry segments: 

natural gas transmission, natural gas distribution, and hazardous liquids transportation. 

The more detailed recommendations addressed the following topics:

• Best Practices

• Regulatory, Funding, and Legal 

• Governance 

• Competency, Awareness, and Training 
11 

• Process for Sharing Information

• Technology, Research, and Development (including information technology architecture 

considerations) 

The advisory panel’s report provides a comprehensive examination of issues to consider in 

developing a system for pooling and sharing safety information. While some of the issues are 

specific to the pipeline and hazardous material environment, many of the issues can inform 

development of an information sharing system in any transportation mode. The advisory panel 

recommends a governance structure similar to the ASIAS structure.

The panel proposed a 5-year timeline to develop and deploy the VIS. The timeline calls for 

obtaining Congressional authorization and legal protections, followed by the establishment of a 

PHMSA project management structure and the development of the governance structure. The 

panel would obtain funding while forming the VIS and procuring the third-party steward. The 

panel would also establish the processes for sharing information and building trust with

stakeholders, processes that take several years.

2.2.4 FRA - RISE

The desire to develop RISE was a natural evolution in FRA’s safety mission. In 1996, FRA

transitioned from a focus on prescriptive regulations to a preference for negotiated rulemaking

and performance-based rules. FRA set up the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) to 

collaborate with railroad industry stakeholders that included the railroads, labor crafts, trade 

associations, and suppliers. This group worked collaboratively to develop a variety of 

regulations. This process provided a forum for industry stakeholders to gain confidence in 

working together to address a common interest in safety while also considering the different 

interests of the stakeholders.

Over the next two decades, FRA created several other initiatives by which the regulator and the 

industry could come together to solve safety concerns. FRA created small working groups 

designed address specific safety concerns such as fatalities associated with switching operations

(Switching Operations Fatalities Analysis [SOFA]) and track work (Fatality Analysis of 

Maintenance-of-way Employees and Signalmen [FAMES]). FRA brought together a diverse set 

of railroad industry stakeholders to identify why these unwanted events were occurring and to 

propose solutions to address them.

In 2007, FRA began a demonstration of C3

RS, a system for confidentially reporting near miss 

related safety events. The demonstration became an FRA voluntary safety program in 2013. This 

program provided railroads with an opportunity to collect safety data that was previously 

unknown to railroad managers and enabled them to proactively address unsafe events before they 

resulted in harm. A third initiative supporting public-private partnerships included grants to 

support the development of the Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI), an organization devoted to 

helping short line railroads measure and improve their safety cultures. 

Experience among FRA and its railroad industry stakeholders in collaborating on voluntary 

safety programs contributed to an environment in which some stakeholders were comfortable 

sharing safety sensitive information in a protected setting, but if made public, could harm their 

interests. FRA has continued to pursue additional non-regulatory safety initiatives to complement 

its regulatory approach to safety enforcement and compliance. RISE is the latest effort in the 
12 

development of FRA-promoted public-private safety initiatives. RISE is a natural progression 

from the development of small railroad committees, C3

RS and technology transfer of successful 

methods for fostering safety in other transportation modes. 

Like NHTSA’s PARTS program, FRA initiated RISE as a pilot project to assess the feasibility of 

a data trust for pooling safety sensitive information and addressing railroad safety issues.

Bringing together sources of safety data in new ways can contribute to improved safety 

outcomes. FAA’s, NHTSA’s, and PHMSA’s previous efforts demonstrate that stakeholders can 

come together to voluntarily share safety sensitive information. Can a similar effort succeed in 

the railroad industry? What obstacles must stakeholders overcome to sustain this safety 

initiative? The demonstration was designed to answer these questions.

Figure 4 shows the sequence of activities beginning in 2018. FRA invited a diverse range of 

railroad stakeholders that included the Association of American Railroads (AAR), several 

passenger railroads, several labor union representatives, and representatives from FAA and 

MITRE to introduce the concepts underlying a data trust and gauge interest. Following the kickoff meeting, FRA invited five passenger railroads to participate in the demonstration. The invited 

railroads were selected because of their similar operations and proximity to each other. FRA

believed that these shared characteristics would increase the likelihood that the railroads would 

be able to identify safety concerns of mutual interest that they wanted to address.

The initial development and implementation of RISE was a pilot demonstration of the data trust 

concept in the railroad domain. The goal was to set up a prototype process and infrastructure for 

sharing safety sensitive information and document the initial challenges. The pilot project 

assessed the potential for RISE to succeed and provide guidance for how to adapt the data trust 

concept to operate successfully in the railroad domain. 

In collaboration with the independent steward and the participating stakeholders, Volpe sought to 

determine the potential to achieve safety benefits and worked to document the potential value in 

expanding this effort. FRA and participating stakeholders were responsible for deciding if the 

concept showed promise and would continue. If the effort continues, FRA can use the lessons 

learned from the initial demonstration to continue the pilot project or expand into a formal 

program via adding stakeholders and exploring additional safety concerns. 

During the project’s first year, the stakeholders developed an MOU that laid out the principles by 

which the project would operate and govern decision-making related to the use of and protection 

of pooled data. FRA procured a third party to serve as the independent data steward. FRA 

awarded the UMD CATT Lab the contract to receive, store, manage and analyze the data on 

behalf of the stakeholders. FRA also asked Volpe to continue facilitating meetings with 

stakeholders, develop a charter, and support UMD CATT Lab. In particular, Volpe helped UMD 

CATT Lab to better understand the rail domain, as their expertise was largely in other 

transportation modes. This support included meetings with UMD CATT Lab and facilitation of 

stakeholder meetings.
13 

Figure 4. RISE pilot sequence of activities

The stakeholders spent several months developing a charter representing the governance 

structure and working out how the RISE pilot project would operate. Figure 5 shows the 

governance structure. Like the NHTSA pilot project, the governance structure has a simpler 

structure compared to ASIAS, with a single body made up of the railroad stakeholders, the 

regulator, and the third party. With a smaller set of stakeholders involved during the pilot phase, 

a more complex structure was not necessary. Section 2.3 discusses the principles guiding the 

governance on data trusts. 

Figure 5. RISE pilot governance structure
14 

The remainder of the pilot project consisted of selecting a study topic, identifying data sources, 

establishing and implementing the data anonymization processes, collecting and analyzing the 

data and deciding how to use the results of this analysis. Section 3 describes the results from this 

demonstration. 

2.3 Data Trusts

A data trust is a mechanism for providing an independent fiduciary stewardship of data (Wylie, 

B., & McDonald, S., 2018). The fiduciary is an independent, third party organization that is 

separate from the organization(s) that may create or own safety data. As a fiduciary, this 

independent steward is responsible for caring for the data on behalf of the organizations that 

share their data. Fiduciary trusts are used in a variety of ways to govern shared resources that 

include financial resources, public lands, as well as information. Fiduciaries serve as legally 

accountable for the resources they hold and to manage risks, in this case, around the use of safety 

data. The fiduciary manages the assets on behalf of the beneficiaries (e.g., the organizations that 

share their data). In a fiduciary relationship, a person or organization puts the fiduciary in a 

position of trust to act on their behalf and interest. As a steward, the managers of the data trust 

make decisions about how the assets, in this case data, are used and who gets access.

Another important element of a data trust is the governance structure that determines how the 

data trust will operate. The governance structure addresses the scope of the data trust, what it will 

be used for, how it will make decisions and how information will be used and shared. A 

governing body consists of select members who oversee the data trust and facilitate adherence to 

the data trust agreement (e.g., a charter that describes the roles and responsibilities of members 

participating in the data trust).

Data trusts promote beneficial uses of data and protect the beneficiaries from the potential for 

harm. Data trusts have been established to protect the interests of the people and organizations 

that share or pool safety sensitive information. They provide a mechanism for data owners to 

control who can access their information and how that information is used (Ruhaak, A., 2019). 

Safety information collection can benefit or harm the organization. The data trust provides a 

mechanism for sharing safety sensitive data while protecting the data owners from the potential 

harms that may otherwise prohibit them from sharing this information.

Harms include the potential for legal liability, financial loss, competitive threats, and reputational 

harm. Across the transportation industry, many organizations worry that simply collecting and 

documenting new safety information creates unwanted risks associated with legal actions, 

regulatory enforcement activities, and freedom of information requests (Freedom of Information 

Act [FOIA]) that may result in financial penalties or negative exposure to the organization’s 

reputation. Recent regulations in the railroad industry establishing the requirement to develop 

safety management systems address this concern by creating protection for new sources of safety 

information (Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations [CFR] Part 270 and 49 CFR Part 271). These 

regulations protect this information from legal liability and FOIA requests.

The third parties serving in the role of data trust steward have typically been: 

• Federal government agencies that have no regulatory authority such as National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Bureau of Transportation 

Statistics (BTS) 
15 

• Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDC) such as MITRE

• Academic institutions such as Lamar University and UMD 

One challenge for data trusts is ownership and use of work products produced by the shared 

activities of the group. While the data that stakeholders contribute belongs to the individual 

stakeholders, the results of the work that the group produces raises questions about who owns the 

work product(s) and who can access it. This issue of how to protect and share this information 

has typically been addressed by the governing bodies rather than the independent steward. 

Depending upon the nature of the work product, the governing body’s decision to share 

information may range between keeping the information confidential to publicly sharing the 

information. 

To protect information provided to the data trust, the third party must address a variety of 

concerns that can be divided into two categories: unauthorized and authorized access. The 

independent steward addresses unauthorized access through data security measures. The 

independent steward determines who can access the system and sets up a system by which only 

identified individuals can access these data. The second form of data protection addresses

authorized access for information. A variety of mechanisms may be used to manage authorized 

access. Based on decisions agreed to by the governing body, the independent steward limits 

access to different types of users. Some users may receive unlimited access to view information. 

Some users may receive limited access in terms of what they can view. As part of protecting the 

information, the independent steward may remove or modify information such as date, time and 

location, so that individuals and organizations cannot be identified. The level of de-identification 

is frequently determined with the support of the participating members to balance the desire for 

confidentiality with the need for details to ensure that the outcomes of the analyses are 

actionable. 

In addition to these measures, data trust members may seek legislative authority and/or 

regulatory relief from Federal and State FOIA requests and legal proceedings. The language in 

these laws and regulations sets the conditions under which this information can be protected. In 

some cases, it may not be possible to provide full relief from certain oversight or potential 

litigation, but it is important to make this all clear throughout this process.

Together, establishment of the governance structure and a data trust can create conditions where 

industry stakeholders develop sufficient trust to share information for the common good. It takes 

a significant amount of time to educate stakeholders about how these mechanisms will protect 

them from harm while enabling them to learn from this data in ways that they could not using 

only their own data and staff. 

2.4 Demonstration Objectives

This demonstration examined the feasibility of pooling railroad safety data to address safety 

concerns of the industry in ways that individual railroad industry stakeholders could not 

otherwise identify. Unlike in the highway environment where stakeholders compete on safety, 

railroads and labor crafts have a common interest in solving safety issues collaboratively. 

Bringing multiple railroad stakeholders together with different interests pose a variety of 

obstacles to the pooling of safety data and making effective use of this data. 
16 

A second objective was to identify obstacles to the effective use of RISE in the railroad domain 

and begin the process of overcoming those obstacles. The potential obstacles include barriers to 

building trust to facilitate data sharing, challenges associated with collecting and integrating the 

data into a database for analysis. This includes the technology challenges associated with data 

integration and management. It also includes the identification of meaningful study topics, given 

the available safety data. The pilot needs to determine if RISE can achieve safety benefits for 

industry stakeholders and if so, to identify how to effectively expand the demonstration to 

include more stakeholders while addressing common safety concerns. Specifically, this 

demonstration sought to answer the following questions: 

1. Did the stakeholders trust the third party to share, store, and analyze data? 

2. Could the third party establish a common platform for sharing and managing data? 

3. Did the study topics of interest to stakeholders intersect with the available data?

4. Did the analysis and presentation of the safety data provide a perspective that 

stakeholders would otherwise not have observed? 

5. What are the challenges to the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of the 

pooled safety data? 

6. Did the stakeholders find value in the results?

7. Did the demonstration inform decisions and actions to address safety concerns? 

8. What are the challenges and next steps to moving this concept forward? 
17 

3. Lessons Learned

3.1 Context

3.1.1 Distinguishing RISE from Other Voluntary Safety Data Collection Initiatives 

As discussed in Section 2.2.4, FRA collaborated with railroad industry stakeholders on a variety 

of voluntary safety initiatives that involve sharing safety data since the mid-1990s. Based on the 

knowledge of these existing safety initiatives, stakeholders asked how RISE differed from these 

other initiatives and what value it would offer. The authors explained how RISE differed from 

these other initiatives and the value it would bring to their organizations. RISE pools data from 

multiple sources to better understand safety concerns. Divergent sources of data enable railroad 

stakeholders to see emergent patterns that may otherwise remain invisible. It leverages large data 

streams to answer a variety of safety concerns. These concerns include the following:

• Identifying emerging risks

• Identifying the nature of a specific vulnerability

• Assessing mitigations

• Monitoring known risks

• Benchmarking safety performance

Clearly distinguishing among these programs is important because safety resources are limited 

and each stakeholder, including FRA, wants to allocate their safety resources effectively and 

efficiently. Allocating scarce safety resources to a duplicative or redundant safety initiative 

would be perceived as poor use of these resources. If FRA decides to continue RISE beyond the 

pilot project, clearly explaining this initiative’s value to new stakeholders will be critical to 

adding more participants.

The selection of stakeholders to participate in the initial demonstration took place organically as 

FRA staff engaged with various stakeholders across the industry. One stakeholder, a passenger 

railroad whose Chief Safety Officer was familiar with FAA’s ASIAS program, expressed interest 

in participating in the pilot project. This interest led to conversations about inviting stakeholders 

from additional passenger railroads. Given this initial interest from a passenger railroad, it was 

determined that engaging with additional passenger railroads, as opposed to short line or freight 

railroads, may increase shared interests and help reach consensus on a charter and in potential 

study topics for the pilot project. RISE requires participation from multiple participants to 

achieve its goals of advancing safety through shared data analysis. Starting with passenger 

railroads would help ensure that the initial efforts included carriers with similar operating 

practices. FRA staff reached out to additional passenger railroads to invite them to participate.

A kick-off meeting was held to discuss the RISE pilot and formally invite the stakeholders to 

participate. During the meeting, the stakeholders discussed how the RISE pilot project would 

work, how it was different from similar initiatives and the benefits that would accrue from their 

participation. Following the meeting, the representatives discussed this information with the 

leadership at each railroad. All the railroads agreed to participate.
18 

3.1.2 Steps in the RISE Pilot

Figure 6 shows the steps followed as part of the pilot. Two steps, developing a charter to 

document the governance structure and identifying the study topics/use cases, took place in 

parallel. The group borrowed many of the principles from the ASIAS program as guiding 

principles. Table 1 shows the principles that the group agreed to adopt. Appendix A documents 

these principles in a charter. For the demonstration project, the stakeholders agreed that there 

would be only one body, comprised of the entire group, to decide governance issues as well as to 

determine and analyze the study topic. This kept the pilot project streamlined and minimized the 

level of effort and coordination required from the stakeholders. 

Figure 6. RISE pilot timeline

May-2018 Oct-2018 May-2019 Oct-2019 Apr-2020 Oct-2020 Apr-2021

Explore stakeholder interest

Interview internal & external stakeholders

Project transferred to RD&T

Interview DOT modes using data trusts

Express interest to participate

Develop charter & governance structure

Identify potential study topics and data sources

Data steward/third party joins demonstration

Study topics selected

Identify challenges to how data is used

Sign charter

Clean and process data

Complete analysis

Present analysis to stakeholders

Document lessons from demonstration

RISE Demonstration Timeline
19 

Table 1. RISE pilot guiding principles

Guiding Principle Description

1 Systemic Assessment Analyses undertaken by RISE stakeholders shall have the 

potential to benefit all the participating stakeholders and 

advance railroad safety.

2 Stakeholder 

Commitment

Stakeholder organizations are committed to participating in the 

RISE pilot project.

3 Articulated Roles and 

Responsibilities 

Each organization participating in the RISE pilot project will 

identify a primary and alternate representative to participate in 

meetings and to coordinate within their organizations to ensure 

that agreed upon responsibilities are met.

4 Consensus-Based 

Decision Making 

Participating organizations will make key decisions that impact 

all stakeholders about RISE pilot project procedures and 

operations by consensus. 

5 Voluntary Participation Participation in the RISE pilot project is entirely voluntary. 

Stakeholders may suspend or end their participation in the RISE 

pilot project at any time. 

6 Transparent Data 

Sharing 

Each stakeholder will work internally to ensure that relevant 

employee groups within their organization are aware of the data 

being shared in the RISE pilot project. 

7 Non-Punitive Data Use Data provided for use in the RISE pilot project and the results 

of any analyses will not be used for punitive actions. 

8 Data De-Identification RISE pilot project data, information, and results of analyses 

will be de-identified in a manner that protects the identity and 

privacy of individuals and stakeholder organizations. 

9 Ensure Data Quality Stakeholders will work collaboratively to maintain high 

standards for data quality in the RISE pilot project.

10 Transparency of 

Processes

RISE pilot project processes will be transparent to stakeholder 

organizations. 

The participants developed a draft charter and identified potential study topics and data that 

could be shared. Next, UMD CATT Lab joined the RISE pilot project and led the final steps in 

selection of the study topics. Stakeholders chose two topics to address: personal injuries and 

operating rules violations to enable individual stakeholders to benchmark their data against 

aggregated data. UMD CATT Lab worked with each of the stakeholders to identify the sources 

of data they would share. After receiving the data, UMD CATT Lab prepared the data for 

analysis and created visualizations in the form of dashboard showing a variety of charts 

presenting the aggregated information. UMD CATT Lab displayed these visualizations using 

Tableau, a software program designed for visualizing data for exploration and presentation. 

UMD CATT Lab staff shared the charts created for exploration and presentation to review and 

conducted interviews with Volpe staff to gather opinions about the value of the shared data.
20 

In the final step, the results of the interviews were documented in a report for FRA (Franz & 

Tous, 2021). 

3.1.3 Continuity of Stakeholder Participation and Impact of COVID-19

A common challenge in FRA sponsored research projects that take place over several years is the 

change in the membership of the people representing a particular stakeholder. These changes 

may occur from job changes, retirements, or other normal employment shifts over time. In this 

demonstration, these changes were accelerated by the impact of COVID-19 which severely 

impacted the operations of all participating railroads. While all stakeholders participated for the 

duration of the demonstration, several representatives left their railroads due to job changes or 

furloughs from the COVID-19 related declines in operations. The severe reductions in revenue 

service led to reductions in staff and made it more difficult for the representatives to participate. 

Setting up meetings and engaging with the stakeholders was more difficult given their stress 

induced from COVID-19 related responsibilities. 

FRA sponsors and Volpe researchers regularly reached out to renew and build relationships with 

the participating stakeholders, who were somewhat unable to participate at the expected levels of 

involvement. Soliciting buy-in at the top of the organization to continue in these demonstrations 

and gauging the stakeholder engagement over time can help in deciding how best to support this 

kind of demonstration. 

3.2 Trust and Stakeholder Engagement

The participating stakeholders are public agencies, many of whom interact with each other on a 

regular basis because they operated over each other’s territory. This helped create a positive 

environment where the stakeholders felt comfortable sharing information for the two topics 

selected. Of the five participating railroads, only one requested a formal memorandum of 

understanding before they would share data. The four remaining railroads were comfortable 

sharing data following the development of the charter and the data anonymization procedures 

developed by UMD CATT Lab. Ultimately, the group decided to pursue two study topics for the 

initial pilot effort (see more detail in Section 3.4) both of which included data that were already 

required by FRA. This familiarity with the data and potential for data consistency across carriers 

may have helped to build comfort in the sharing of data for this initial effort.

As the independent steward, UMD CATT Lab protected the data using a variety of mechanisms

and de-identified the data. Each stakeholder only had access to its own data and the aggregated 

data. Stakeholders could not access information for other individual stakeholders. Each 

stakeholder retained ownership of their data. They could ask UMD CATT Lab to remove the 

data at any time. Data fields that were available for only a single stakeholder were not used in the 

aggregated data set to avoid identifying the stakeholder that owned that data. All these data uses 

were clearly articulated to and agreed upon by the stakeholders.

Stakeholders proposed topics for study and provided data as well as expertise to consider how to 

select the study topics. The stakeholders expressed an interest in learning whether this process of 

combining their data would enable them to learn and act on common safety concerns that they 

might not address as effectively by themselves.

To maintain and foster stakeholder engagement going forward will require showing value to the 

stakeholders. 
21 

3.3 Trade-offs Between Data Sharing and Data Protection

The interest in sharing safety data is balanced by the concern from individuals and organizations 

for how the information may be used by others and who can access that data. Some data owners 

may worry that their data may be used to cause harm in addition to the benefits that this sharing 

affords. Exposure of this data to others may have the potential to contribute to legal jeopardy, 

financial harm and harm to their reputation. The perception of potential harm to the organization

can be managed by developing strategies to minimize the potential for harm. These strategies 

range from avoiding collecting some types of safety data to a mechanism for data protection and 

limiting data access. The desire to share safety data involves a trade-off between the benefits of 

sharing this information and the costs this creates. 

Over time, if the benefits of RISE are great enough and the potential for harm is effectively 

minimized, stakeholders may choose to adjust their willingness to share more sensitive data. As 

this effort is being established and as the demonstration phase is underway, the stakeholders may 

wish to provide less sensitive data. This stage of establishing trust in the process and in one 

another will help to build the structure necessary for future data sharing.

3.4 Selecting the Initial Topic

Selecting a topic to study is a challenging task in that a successful outcome depends on 

identifying a topic that the stakeholders care about while also ensuring that sufficient relevant 

data exists and can be obtained, processed, and analyzed to address that need. Figure 7 shows a 

Venn diagram that depicts a prerequisite for successful outcome that involves the intersection of 

a topic for which there is data.

Figure 7. Identifying the topic to study

To identify one or more topics, the stakeholders were asked to provide topics they were 

interested in exploring through the RISE pilot project as well as a list of data they might be able 

to share. This process resulted in a list of 35 topics to consider and identified 34 types of data 

that may be available to provide to the effort. To make the selection process easier, the 35 the 

topics were categorized according to the overlap or similarity of the topic areas. This activity 

reduced the number of topics to nine study topics as shown in Table 2. For each study topic, 

How do you decide what to study?

Topic of 

interest

Available 

data
22 

stakeholders ranked their preferred topics in order of preference on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 

representing lowest interest and 5 as highest interest. Each stakeholder also indicated the 

availability of the data sources addressing the quality, volume, and other factors that were 

identified and the topic they could address. 

Table 2. Nine study topics identified

Topics

1 Employee Injuries

2 Rules Violations

3 Passenger Station Misses/Off Platform

4 Technology Overreliance

5 PTC System Status

6 Equipment Safety

7 Employee Training

8 Operator Errors

9 Post-Incident Actions

The topics were rated according to three criteria: value, feasibility, and duration. Value 

represented the benefits that might accrue from addressing a particular study topic. Feasibility 

addressed whether the data that stakeholders indicated they could share would be sufficient to 

address the topic. Duration addressed how long the stakeholders believed it would take to 

address the topic. The stakeholders agreed that to make the demonstration practical, it should be 

completed in 12–18 months. 

The scores for each topic along with availability and relevance of the data were combined in a 

weighted score. Following the ranking of these topics and data, the stakeholders discussed these 

ranked preference scores. At this meeting the consensus among the stakeholders was in favor of 

selecting one or more topics that would maximize their chance for a successful outcome. Three 

topics emerged as the top contenders for the stakeholders to pursue: 

1. Personal injuries

2. Operating rule violations

3. Passenger station misses/off platform

UMD CATT Lab reviewed and offered recommendations for which study topics/use cases to 

pursue. Following its review, UMD CATT Lab held another meeting to discuss their 

recommendations. At this meeting UMD CATT Lab recommended addressing the top two study 

topics/use cases: personal injuries and operating rules violations. Additionally, during that 

meeting the group decided to look at grade crossing incidents and the potential for safety 

improvement as a topic of interest. Grade crossing safety was not initially identified as a 

potential study topic during the data-driven exercise, but the group decided that this was a topic 

worth further exploring. 
23 

UMD CATT Lab staff spent several months working with each of the stakeholders getting 

agreements to obtain the data for each of the three study topics and understanding what the 

different data fields represented and developing a secure platform for sharing and presenting the 

data for the study topics/use cases. This coordination was conducted across many different video 

conferences to allow the stakeholders to discuss with UMD CATT Lab the nuances of the data 

they were providing. While the type of data being provided from each stakeholder was similar, 

the format and specifics of the data were unique for each carrier. This time spent understanding 

the data were critical for ensuring that data were able to be aggregated accurately.

For one stakeholder, the UMD CATT Lab was unable to work out an agreement to share the data

in time for the pilot project. In another case, the stakeholder was unable to share all the data 

requested because reductions to staffing from COVID-19 prohibited them from making the data 

available. There were still a sufficient number of railroads participating in the effort to 

anonymously and confidentially present aggregated data. 

3.5 Data Wrangling and Presentation

The NHTSA’s PARTS demonstration selected a specific question that they believed would 

showcase the value of such a data trust and set out to answer that question. In contrast, the RISE 

pilot project sought to identify broader topic areas that may consist of additional opportunities 

for analysis. With this broader approach in mind, the UMD CATT Lab did not initiate 

conversations with stakeholders to discuss how to analyze the data and instead focused on 

identifying suitable data sources. 

UMD CATT Lab spent the early part of its work talking with stakeholders to better understand 

the data fields that the stakeholders would share, how stakeholders used these data and 

determining how best to standardize the data for aggregation. Early in this process, it was 

determined that the grade crossing safety effort was unlikely to yield valuable insight based on 

the available data and variability between stakeholders; the topic was not further pursued in the 

pilot project. UMD CATT Lab’s goal was to present the aggregated data for the two study 

topics/use cases in charts grouped together in dashboards that the stakeholders could use to 

explore the aggregated data or their own data. UMD CATT Lab used Tableau to display this 

data. Prior to developing the dashboards, UMD CATT Lab removed duplicates, corrected 

missing and inaccurate data, and transformed the raw data’s format into a format suitable for data 

exploration. 

The approach selected by UMD CATT Lab is one potential use of data collected through RISE. 

An approach that is more similar to those used by ASIAS and PARTS, where the goal is more 

focused on answering a single question rather than exploring a topic, would also be a reasonable 

approach. Both of these approaches, as well as others, are possible within the RISE Charter and 

the stakeholders may select to modify shift between these approaches to best suit their needs as 

RISE moves forward. 

3.6 Lessons Learned from the RISE Pilot Project

The selection of the two study topics/use cases personal injuries and operating rules led to 

several predictable outcomes. Both study topics/use cases addressed safety concerns found in 

regulations (either FRA or Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]). As a result, 

some of the data fields that the railroads collect were in a standardized format required by FRA 

data reporting requirements. Not all the fields were standardized, as some stakeholders collected 
24 

additional information beyond what was required by the regulations. However, if a field was 

collected by only one stakeholder, it was removed from the aggregated data to prevent users 

from identifying data associated with a specific stakeholder.

Despite the standardization of some type of data collected by the railroads there were significant 

differences among the fields that were not standardized. For operating rules data, the railroads 

varied significantly in the number of fields that each railroad collected. The number of fields 

varied from 18 to 44. Stakeholders varied in the level of detail that they collected for fields that 

document factors like date, time, location, employee characteristics, and equipment type. Some 

stakeholders collected additional data beyond what was typically collected by rail carriers across 

the country. Though these data may have provided additional safety benefits or afforded a more 

detailed understanding of the data, some could not be included because data from a limited 

number of stakeholders may compromise the anonymity of the data.

For personal injury data, the number of data fields ranged from 25 to 51. For operating rules, the 

number of data fields ranged from 18 to 44. Some railroads collected much more information 

than others. 

The disparate number of data fields for both topics was partly a function of the ability of the 

department within the railroad that collected that information. For this demonstration, the 

participating stakeholders within each of the railroads came from the safety departments. Some 

of the data involving personal injuries were held by other departments. Human resource 

departments collected data on employee demographics and the operating rules departments 

usually held data on operating rules violations. Obtaining and sharing this data from the other 

departments varied by the railroad. Some railroads shared data across their organizations more 

easily than others.

For both topics, the decision to ask stakeholders for 18 months of data was made to ease the data 

collection efforts for the stakeholders. Data was collected for the period from January 2019 to 

June 2020. Collecting data for a longer period could have provided the stakeholders with more 

information to inform their understanding and exploration of the data.

During the demonstration, the COVID-19 pandemic struck and contributed to several challenges. 

Each participating stakeholder operated a passenger railroad; the reduction in people traveling 

and therefore the number of employees at every stakeholder organization made it increasingly 

challenging for stakeholders to actively participate in meetings. Several stakeholder 

representatives lost their jobs or left their organizations and those that remained were less 

available to participate due to the increased workload at their organizations. Despite these 

challenges, an initial pilot was completed, though it took longer than initially anticipated. 

The pandemic also resulted in meetings that took place virtually instead of in person. While 

many of these meetings proceeded smoothly and were unnecessary to hold in person, creating a 

new process for information sharing based on trusted relationships, in-person meetings can still

be an important way to build and maintain these relationships. In-person meetings create the 

opportunity for informal networking and communication and the reading of body language that 

fosters trust and effective communication.

A key challenge for UMD CATT Lab was collecting the same types of data across the 

stakeholders. In working with railroad stakeholders, the primary part of the stakeholder 

organization involved the safety department staff. Safety departments across the stakeholders 
25 

varied in the access to the information requested by UMD CATT Lab. The operating rules 

department, human resources department, or another department may have owned some of the 

data. These departments varied in their willingness or ability to share this data. The data may 

have been stored on a variety of information systems increasing the challenge to coordinate the 

sharing of this information. These data silos created organizational barriers to the sharing of this 

data that varied by stakeholder. 

A significant part of the effort by UMD CATT Lab involved data wrangling described in Section 

3.6, identifying fields that addressed the same type of data (i.e., day of the week) but used 

different labels to describe this data, cataloging the data using a common format, and addressing 

missing data. UMD CATT Lab staff reached out to each stakeholder and walked through each of 

the fields they provided to understand how the data fields were represented. UMD CATT Lab 

relied on FRA and Volpe, in addition to the railroad stakeholders themselves, to help understand 

railroad specific terminology, as they have limited experience in the railroad domain. 

When UMD CATT Lab began collaborating with stakeholders in completing the topic selection 

process, the pilot project’s focus changed from the stakeholders collaborating on the analysis of a 

specific safety question to the process for obtaining the data and making it available for analysis 

by the stakeholders, themselves. This focus provided valuable insights for moving forward with 

new topics and considerations for obtaining and managing data. 

The current pilot project showed the opportunities for aggregating data across passenger 

railroads with a common set of interests.

3.6.1 Feedback from Stakeholders

Following the completion of the Tableau dashboards, UMD CATT Lab set up a meeting to 

demonstrate the use of the dashboards prior to providing the stakeholders access to them. During 

the meeting UMD CATT Lab explained what each chart displayed and how to manipulate the 

charts to display different types of information. They answered questions from the stakeholders 

on how to manage the Tableau interface and what the capabilities and limitations were of the 

dashboard at this time. 

Following this meeting, each stakeholder could access the dashboard to explore on their own. 

Once the stakeholders had access to the dashboards, Volpe and UMD CATT Lab staff provided 

the stakeholders with a list of questions to answer about their use of the Tableau dashboards and 

the value of this RISE pilot thus far. After giving the stakeholders 1 to 2 weeks to explore the 

Tableau dashboards, the stakeholders returned the responses to the questions. UMD CATT Lab 

and Volpe met with each of the stakeholders to seek additional information on the use of the 

Tableau dashboards and the RISE pilot. Section 3.6.2 describes the feedback offered by the 

stakeholders.

3.6.2 Value of RISE and Use of the Tableau Dashboards

Overall, all the stakeholders agreed that the RISE pilot project showed the value of sharing and 

aggregating data across stakeholders. The stakeholders unanimously agreed that this initiative 

was worth continuing and expressed interest in expanding the program. They also indicated that 

they felt confident in the process by which their data were obtained and stored by UMD CATT 

Lab. The information in the dashboards provided insights that they otherwise would not have 

observed, and the Tableau dashboards provided both valuable methods for data exploration and 
26 

understanding as well as effective displays for presenting information to support decisionmaking. 

While the stakeholders were very positive about the progress of the pilot project, they did offer 

some feedback about the current dashboards as well as considerations for the future of RISE. Of 

the two topics addressed in this initial demonstration, personal injuries provided a richer source 

of information than the data from operating rules. The amount of data was considerably smaller 

for operating rules violations (183 records) compared to the personal injuries (1,726 records) and 

one stakeholder was unable to provide any data related to rules violations. In addition to the 

larger number of data fields upon which to draw for analysis, the UMD CATT Lab created four 

dashboards addressing personal injuries and one dashboard addressing operating rule violations. 

The railroad stakeholders unanimously reported more value in reviewing the personal injury data 

compared to the operating rules. The charts created by UMD CATT Lab for personal injuries 

enabled the stakeholders to view the data in ways that they had not seen before. 

The operating rules data were used to create charts that were familiar to the stakeholders, 

limiting the opportunity for the stakeholders to gain new insights. This result may be a function 

of the kind of data that is collected and stored in stakeholder information systems. The data 

collected indicates what operating rule was violated, but lacks information that could inform why 

it occurred. Current railroad investigation methods fail to document information that could 

inform why these events occurred. FRA sponsored research on stop signal overruns and 

switching operations suggests that it is possible to collect this data to inform new insights 

(Multer, J., Safar, H. & Roth, E. M, 2019) (Safer, H. Roth, E. M., Multer, J., & France, M., 

2019). The challenge is to identify the data to collect and developing uniform practices for their 

collection. Should industry stakeholders demonstrate interest in pursuing this challenge, it may 

be valuable to form a working group to facilitate the identification and uniform collection of this 

information across the industry. 

In this pilot, the analysis of both topics afforded the stakeholders an opportunity to benchmark 

their own data against their peers. For both topics, some of the data provided to UMD CATT Lab

by stakeholders was already being reported to FRA as required by regulations. All the 

participating railroads, except one that did not provide data,2 appreciated the ability to compare 

their data to those of their peers. The data provided to UMD CATT Lab contained both 

reportable data as well as non-reportable data; the non-reportable data provided additional 

insights that would not normally be available, since stakeholders did not provide that data to 

FRA. FRA recently began to provide some of the personal injury data on its website using 

Tableau, however, the displays developed by UMD CATT Lab provided greater flexibility to 

compare their data to aggregated data in ways that were unavailable on FRA website.

Stakeholders reported difficulty in using FRA created Tableau charts in ways that were useful. 

The UMD CATT Lab dashboards provided charts that were also unavailable on FRA website 

and enabled them to explore the data in new ways. The ability to explore weather data as well as 

to investigate incident severity and cost were noted by several carriers as particularly helpful.

Several stakeholders expressed interest in collecting additional data to support the use of these 

dashboards going forward. The dashboards for the pilot project contained only 18 months of data 

2 The carrier that did not provide data was still interested in providing data for this effort, but was unable to do so 

prior to the initial launch of the dashboards.
27 

and stakeholders expressed interest in seeing up to 5 years’ worth of data and continuing to 

submit current data so that they could see how trends were changing over time. It was also noted 

that it may be easier for many stakeholders to start to collect data in a specified format going 

forward as opposed to relying on historic data that may need to be reworked. Such a task, 

however, would not have fit within the expectations of RISE’s initial pilot which expected an 

end product within 18 months. Stakeholders generally sought a consistent process to gather data 

in a specified format as a goal for RISE as it continues. Additionally, stakeholders suggested that 

UMD CATT Lab work to automatically ingest data that is already publicly available from FRA 

to reduce the burden on the stakeholders in collecting and organizing their data for submission 

into RISE.

These stakeholders also saw value in inviting additional commuter railroads so that the aggregate 

data would better reflect the population of commuter railroads. It would also provide a larger set 

of data from which to understand and explore the impacts of personal injuries. Some 

stakeholders indicated that the operating rules dashboard provided less value for data exploration 

and understanding because there was much less data on which to base any inferences. With 

additional commuter railroads participating it may be possible to overcome this challenge. 

Stakeholders also noted that as participation expands, some benchmarking may differ by 

location, making it ideal to be able to select certain types of stakeholders against which to 

compare.

The long-term success of the RISE pilot program will be dependent on the stakeholders 

obtaining value out of the program. There is a cost to participation that will need to be justified 

by the outcomes that the program achieves. In the RISE pilot project, stakeholders invested time 

and energy to achieve the results described above and indicated that they were satisfied with this 

pilot effort. As the RISE effort continues it will be critical to ensure that the costs associated with 

participating in RISE are justified by the outcomes of the research questions that are pursued. 

3.7 Opportunities Moving Forward

In this section, the authors offer opportunities to learn from the RISE pilot project. The 

opportunities are activities that can help to direct RISE as the program continues and a new topic 

is selected to measure the value of this initiative in the railroad domain.

1. Reinforce and clarify what RISE’s purpose is and how it is different from similar 

programs. 

The RISE program shares characteristics with other voluntary safety initiatives sponsored 

by FRA. Some stakeholders are familiar with other FRA voluntary non-punitive 

partnerships. While leveraging this familiarity may be helpful, it will be important to 

make clear how RISE adds value beyond what is already gained through these other 

efforts. 

The goal of the RISE pilot project was to identify the feasibility of creating a data trust 

for collaborating on safety concerns of common interest to the stakeholders that they 

could not easily do themselves. A second goal was to identify the steps for successfully 

moving the initiative forward to benefit the participating stakeholders and to expand the 

initiative to include more stakeholders and new topic areas. The commonality with 

similar programs that FRA has sponsored and developed has led to confusion among 

stakeholders about how this initiative differs from other safety initiatives that FRA has 
28 

created and how stakeholders benefit from participation. Establishing a clear distinction 

about what RISE is intended to accomplish and how it differs from other programs is 

important to establish and maintain stakeholder engagement.

2. The keys for success are enshrined in the principles that were adopted during the 

initial roll-out of the demonstration. Keep them front and center as the 

demonstration moves forward.

RISE’s guiding principles were based on past research on data trusts and programs like 

successful ASIAS program. These principles provide guidelines for how stakeholders 

should conduct themselves and provides mechanisms for building trust among the 

stakeholders for sharing safety sensitive data. The principles serve as a foundation upon 

which to build and minimize the potential for challenges that slow the progress of RISE 

program development. As the stakeholders encounter challenges in addressing specific 

issues, remind stakeholders how the principles provide a process for addressing the 

challenges.

3. Appoint an individual or a group to serve in the role of governing the process that 

the stakeholders have established. 

FRA’s Office of Research, Development and Technology led the coordination of 

stakeholders during the initial RISE pilot project. During the next phase, if the pilot 

project expands to include additional stakeholders, FRA should decide whether the 

current informal governance structure is adequate or whether a more formal structure is 

needed. FRA may want to consult with the stakeholders to determine when a more formal 

governance structure is needed. 

It will take time to adapt RISE as it changes from a pilot project to a formal program to 

suit the needs of the stakeholders and achieve the goals set out for RISE. FRA’s Office of 

Railroad Safety will lead RISE when FRA is ready to move beyond RISE as a research 

effort. Consider developing an executive committee to functioning this role, as was done 

in the FAA’s ASIAS system. The executive committee, consisting of multiple 

stakeholders would take on a more prominent role in directing the work of the RISE 

stakeholders. As a decision-making body, an executive committee would represent the 

diverse interests of the stakeholders.

4. Create a roadmap for the development of RISE. Identify the milestones and goals of 

each step and communicate those goals to stakeholders. Keep the goals for each step 

front and center so that stakeholder organizations (and not only individuals, who 

may change over time) are clear about the purpose of the initiative. 

As the RISE pilot project progressed, staffing changes occurred both within the project 

and external to the project. New organizations were brought in to support the project 

(Volpe and the UMD CATT Lab) and some stakeholder representatives left their 

respective organizations. These changes contributed to changes in the project’s

implementation and the level of stakeholder engagement. The COVID-19 pandemic may 

have exacerbated some of these challenges by increasing staffing changes and reducing 

the resources available to support this effort. While the pandemic accelerated these 

challenges, these are not entirely new challenges. Efforts to clarify goals and milestones 
29 

for RISE will help to minimize these disruptions and help to advance efforts in the face of 

these challenges.

5. Identify ways to address the challenges associated with collecting and managing 

data. 

This opportunity goes beyond RISE. Collecting and managing safety data in an effective 

way is critical for conducting successful research and in accurately assessing risk for 

managing safety oversight. The quality of the data (i.e., can we trust it to measure what 

we think we are measuring?) and the ability to use the data to make sense of safety 

concerns relies on several factors listed below. 

a. First, the process by which data is collected matters. While data may appear to be 

useful for understanding safety issues, if it is not obtained using sound data collection 

practices, subsequent use of that data may lead to erroneous conclusions about why 

safety related events occur and the solutions to address them. For example, does the 

data represent a sample of the population or describe the whole population? For 

narrative data, were established interview practices conducted by trained 

interviewers? For objective data, such as event recordings, signal data, etc., what is 

the process for interpreting this data and how much experience do the interpreters 

have in making sense of this data?

b. Second, a uniform format by which the data is collected will make it easier to 

aggregate the data. Collaboration among railroads, vendors, and other interested 

stakeholders to standardize and make uniform the data could reduce the time and 

effort to make it accessible for analysis in aggregate form. Standardizing data formats 

would allow users to compare data within and across railroads. Given that the 

organization and standardization of data formats was such a significant source of 

effort in this demonstration, putting in effort early in the process may yield large 

dividends later. Railroads may find it in their interest to adopt uniform formats to 

foster information sharing when operating over each other’s territories and to 

facilitate analysis.

With uniform standards for data collection and storage, software developers can more 

easily create applications that would serve the interests of a broad segment of the 

railroad industry. For smaller railroads and the passenger railroads, which are more 

resource constrained, software applications may be less expensive to purchase when 

the developer can apply the same process across the industry.

For example, a date field that varies by whether the information is reported hourly, 

daily, weekly, or monthly has implications for the level of analysis. The lowest 

common denominator by which the data is collected determines the level at which the 

data can be aggregated.

A question to be answered by the stakeholders is at what level of analysis for which 

particular data fields will lead to meaningful results. A part of this process may 

involve suggesting that stakeholders reconsider how they are collecting and 

organizing data. A data trust like RISE may bring some of these issues to the 

forefront for those who have not considered these types of changes and yield positive 

safety benefits.
30 

c. Third, it is important to identify what kind of data needs to be collected to understand 

a safety concern. In many cases, data which is easy to collect (e.g., date, time, 

location, etc.) is relied upon for analysis rather than the data associated with 

underlying operations that contribute to the safety event(s) in question. Identifying 

what kinds of data need to be collected and finding ways to collect them without 

imposing undue burden is an important challenge to overcome. Railroads are also 

adding sensors in their equipment for condition monitoring. 

These sensors will create vast quantities of data that railroads may be able to use to 

improve safety. How will this data be stored to facilitate different uses across the 

railroad? Different data structures serve different purposes. Data warehouses provide 

a process for storing structured data while data lakes provide a way to store 

unstructured data for which the use may not be immediately apparent or may change 

over time.

d. Fourth, as the complexity of railroad operations increases with new technologies and 

changes in business operations (e.g., Precision Scheduled Railroading and using 

software to manage how trains are put together), more opportunities will arise for 

using these data to inform decisions about improving safety. To maximize these 

opportunities, multiple sources of data will need to be collected in a central location 

to explore the relationships between these data sources. The RISE pilot project

represents an opportunity to explore the challenges to the collection, management, 

and analysis of these sources. Future RISE analyses should consider multiple sources 

of data to address safety concerns.

e. Fifth, these new sources of data are likely to contain very large data sets (e.g., event 

recordings, video, and other sensor-based data) that will be challenging to analyze 

using traditional methods. The vast quantities of data suggest that methods such as 

artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms will be needed to make 

the analysis process manageable. It will take time to develop the AI and machine 

learning algorithms to make sense of these large data sets.

6. Set realistic expectations about how long it will take to create a RISE program that 

is useful to the stakeholders and to achieve the level of engagement needed to 

support this initiative. 

The significant steps to stand up RISE and make it useful to stakeholders require patience 

among the stakeholders. Overcoming the challenges associated with the collection and 

management of the safety sensitive data will take time. It is important to create realistic 

expectations among stakeholders. The specific path to a successful data trust will depend 

on the stakeholder’s interests and patience. Given the time required, one strategy to build 

buy-in may be to identify topics for which there is the potential for a high level of return 

on the investment required to make RISE successful. An alternative may be to identify 

topics that will provide small, incremental safety improvements that create continued 

support for the program while some of the bigger challenges are addressed. For 

whichever path is identified, it will be important to remind stakeholders of the value that 

has been realized through each step and how that helps to move towards the longer-term 

goals. 
31 

Some topics may take a substantial amount of time to yield meaningful, actionable 

results. While a long turnaround may be seen as a negative by some, these topics may be 

a valuable part of a data trust as individual carriers may lack the ability or patience to 

study these topics on their own. If the stakeholders pursue such an effort it will be 

important to identify interim milestones as signs of success rather than to pin 

determinations of success only on the end product. Meaningful progress towards a goal 

may be hard to see on longer term efforts if attempts are not made to identify these 

interim goals.

7. Continue to build trust among the stakeholders through a consensus-based 

approach to topic identification and collaboration in data collection and analysis. 

Trust among stakeholders is critical for the success of the RISE program. They must trust 

in one another, in FRA’s role, and in the third party collecting, managing, and analyzing 

their safety sensitive data. The first RISE pilot project represents an initial effort in 

building and maintaining this trust. As RISE continues, it will be important to maintain 

this trust and to build upon it for RISE to grow and thrive. By maintaining focus on the 

program’s core values and using a consensus-based decision process, RISE can continue 

to grow while helping stakeholders remain confident in the process. 

8. Consider topics that involve more stakeholders and are not easily addressed by 

individual stakeholders alone.

While the current pilot identified some challenges and solutions for integrating data from 

multiple carriers, a future pilot involving the railroad stakeholders to select and address a 

specific problem would show the value of the stakeholders working together towards a 

more specific goal. The two topics selected by the stakeholders both fell under the 

regulatory authority of either FRA or OSHA and specified the reporting of certain kinds 

of data to the regulator. As a result, the railroads were required to collect certain data 

fields. This may have contributed to more uniform formatting of data fields than would 

have otherwise occurred. This may have contributed to the stakeholders feeling 

comfortable with sharing these data during an early phase when trust was still being 

earned.

As RISE moves forward, consider addressing a topic which is currently a problem across 

the industry, and for which the reporting requirements are minimal, such as trespassing. 

The causal factors are also poorly understood and the reported data bears little on these 

causal factors. Railroads and FRA have a common interest in improving their 

understanding of why trespassing occurs and identifying effective strategies to address 

this growing problem. It is a problem that is not likely to be solved by one railroad alone 

and could benefit from a collaboration among many stakeholders. While trespassing risk 

and cause may be specific to a location, there are likely common factors that increase 

trespass risk that may be broadly applicable to many stakeholders. Because it is a 

common problem, it may be easier to add new members to the group. The addition of 

data from more railroads as well as increasing amounts of data may enable the RISE 

process to analyze a large amount of data in ways that inform how to solve this complex 

issue.
32 

9. For data that railroads report to FRA as required by regulation, consider forming 

working groups to identify how data presented on the FRA website can better meet 

the needs of the stakeholders that can benefit from using this data. Identify ways 

that data can be standardized to facilitate information sharing.

Findings from the demonstration suggest an opportunity for FRA to collaborate with 

stakeholders to provide information in more meaningful ways that require less effort to 

support analysis and decision-making.

Railroad stakeholders expressed frustration with using the safety data on the FRA website 

to meet their needs and indicated that UMD CATT Lab’s dashboards helped to alleviate 

these challenges. FRA could adopt some of the same practices for making FRA safety 

data more accessible to people who make use of this data. Creating working groups of 

railroad industry stakeholders to identify how industry stakeholders want this FRA 

supplied information could provide FRA with an understanding of the industry needs and 

enable FRA to better meet these needs. 

As part of working with these stakeholders, FRA and the industry stakeholders can 

propose ways to standardize the identification of data fields of interest and the formats in 

which that data be most useful. These efforts can facilitate the sharing of safety data 

across stakeholders. This activity could occur outside of the RISE pilot project. However, 

this process may reveal insights that cannot be gained from the data as it is collected 

through FRA reporting and may point RISE in a direction where they may add value to 

the FRA data process.

10. Identify the barriers to sharing information within railroads that can support more 

effective organizational learning and improve safety.

Information silos are common within railroads and they can create barriers to improving 

safety. The inability of railroads to share data easily across organizational boundaries 

impairs organizational learning about safety. Identifying the barriers and finding ways to 

overcome these barriers could enable railroads to make better use of the data they 

currently collect.

3.8 Next Steps

As next steps, the authors recommend presenting the findings documented in this report along 

with those of UMD CATT Lab to the stakeholders and discussing how to apply these lessons 

going forward. The railroad stakeholders expressed interest in continuing to participate in RISE. 

The stakeholders can identify how to move forward. They can include: identifying new topics 

and inviting additional stakeholders into a second demonstration. 

As the sponsor for this research, FRA should think about the need to create a more formal charter 

and governance structure for RISE. This is an activity that can wait until a decision is made to 

move from research to deployment of an FRA program. Finally, FRA may want to identify the 

criteria for making the decision to transition from research to a program housed within the Office 

of Railroad Safety and what resources will be needed to involve in this effort. 
33 

4. Conclusion

The current report documents the lessons learned from the RISE pilot project; a pilot of a data 

trust designed to address safety sensitive topics that are more suitable to solving with multiple 

stakeholder organizations working together to solve problems of mutual interest. RISE offers the 

opportunity to bring together large sets of data that stakeholders would not normally have access 

to on their own. 

The first pilot project showed that the stakeholders were willing and able to share data and 

overcome, with the help of an independent steward, the challenges of integrating data on 

common safety concerns for which the data may be stored in different formats. The presentation 

of this information provided stakeholders with new views of the data. 

A challenge going forward will be for the stakeholders to identify what RISE means to them and 

how it can be used to benefit the stakeholders. Table 3 displays the questions this demonstration 

was designed to answer and a summary of the answers to these questions.

Table 3. Summary of responses to demonstration questions

Demonstration Question Answer

1 Did the stakeholders trust the 

third party to share, store, and 

analyze data?

Yes. Effective communication and coordination will 

be an important factor in building and maintaining 

trust among the stakeholders along with an effective 

governance structure.

2 Could the independent steward

establish a common platform 

for sharing and managing data? 

Yes. The independent steward was able to build a 

platform for the aggregation of stakeholder data. 

3 Did the study topics of interest 

to stakeholders intersect with 

the available data?

Yes. This pilot addressed data that railroads already 

share with FRA in some form. A challenge going 

forward will be sharing data that they do not share 

with FRA and each other. 

4 Did the analysis and 

presentation of the safety data 

provide a perspective that 

stakeholders would otherwise 

not have observed? 

Yes. Stakeholders appreciated the ability to 

benchmark their performance against their peers. 

They also appreciated several charts that displayed 

information in ways that enabled them to drill down 

easily to better understand the relationships between 

different factors.

5 What are the challenges to the 

collection, analysis, 

interpretation, and presentation 

of the pooled safety data? 

Developing a uniform or standardized format for 

the storage and display of common data fields 

would facilitate data aggregation and management. 

6 Did the stakeholders find value 

in the results?

Yes.
34 

Demonstration Question Answer

7 Did the demonstration inform 

decisions and actions to address 

safety concerns?

No. The data selected for this study covered an 18 

month period that ended in June 2020 and was 

insufficient to inform decision-making and actions.

8 What are the challenges and 

next steps to moving this 

concept forward?

Identify what RISE means to them and how it can 

be used to benefit the stakeholders. Expand RISE to 

include more stakeholders and identify new topics. 

The answers to the questions above indicate that the RISE pilot project demonstrated that such a 

program is possible for the railroad industry. Stakeholders involved with the RISE pilot project 

saw value and hope that the program continues. If the RISE program is expanded, the FRA and 

RISE stakeholders may consider the following high-level recommendations based on 

observations from the pilot phase: 

Finding/Observation Recommendation

The long-term success of the RISE program is 

dependent upon the stakeholders obtaining 

value that justifies their participation.

Future analyses should enrich the data 

with information that is relevant to the 

study, but not available in the raw data of 

the individual railroads. This may be 

through novel methods (e.g., machine 

learning techniques), additional data 

sources, or other ways to enhance the raw 

data.

Significant effort is required to integrate some 

data that are collected by railroads in the same 

context. 

Account for sufficient time to integrate 

and clean data.

Coordinate with FRA to streamline 

integration of FRA-mandated data. 

Pursue research into the development of 

data standards.

Participation is likely to change for 

stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of the 

program. 

Maintain consistent communication with 

stakeholders to ensure replacements can 

be onboarded if the current point of 

contact is unable to continue. 

Clearly define expectations for 

participation in the RISE program.

As RISE grows into a more fully formed 

program, stakeholder roles may need to be 

defined differently. 

Define governance structure accounting 

for planned growth.

Define sub-groups within RISE with 

clearly defined roles, such as determining 

policy changes or issue identification.
35 

Finding/Observation Recommendation

More challenging research questions may take 

a significant amount of time to yield 

actionable results.

Clearly articulate timeline expectations 

within the FRA and to RISE stakeholders.

Identify interim milestones along the path 

to completion which can serve as 

evidence of meaningful progress towards 

the longer-term goal.

Satisfaction with the initial pilot effort may 

narrow the group’s vision about the broad 

value of RISE as a program.

Remind stakeholders of the broad 

potential for RISE and encourage the 

group to pursue a more aggressive or 

challenging research question during the 

next phase. 

Information sharing barriers are present 

within the railroads themselves and these 

barriers can hamper the goals of RISE if the 

correct departments are not involved.

Ensure that the right individuals from 

each railroad stakeholder are involved in 

discussions; this may depend on the 

research question being asked. 

Facilitate open discussion with 

stakeholders about internal barriers to data 

access and how these barriers may be 

overcome. 

For RISE to grow into a program for the 

entire railroad industry, membership will need 

to expand to incorporate more varied points of 

view.

Engage a broader set of stakeholders 

including freight railroads and labor 

representatives.

Ensure that the governance structure 

considers the potential for topics which 

are relevant to only a subset of the 

stakeholders.
36 

5. References

Federal Aviation Administration. (2020, August 11). Air Carrier Training Systems and 

Voluntary Safety Programs Branch Voluntary Safety Program Descriptions. Retrieved 

from U.S Department of Transportation: 

Kolly, J. (2019). Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety (PARTS): Demonstrating 

the Value of the Partnership. Goverment Industry Meeting. Washington, DC. 

Multer, J., Safar, H. & Roth, E. M. (2019). Why do Passenger Trains Pass Stop Signals? A 

Systems View. Technical Report No. DOT/FRA/ORD-19/19. Washington, DC: U.S. 

Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration. 

Office of the Inspector General. (2013). Audit Report: FAA's Safety Data Analysis and Sharing 

System Shows Progress, But More Advanced Capabilities and Inspector Access Remain 

Limited. Standard No. AV-2017-017. Washington, DC: Federal Aviation Administration. 

Ruhaak, A. (2019, November 11). Data Trusts: Why, What and How. Retrieved from Medium. 

Safer, H. Roth, E. M., Multer, J., & France, M. (2019). Why Do Passenger Trains Run through 

Switches in the Rail Yard? Technical Report No. DOT/FRA/ORD-19/37. Washington, 

DC: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration.

U.S. Department of Transportation. (2020, January 16). Partnership for Analytics Research in 

Traffic Safety (PARTS). Retrieved from NHTSA. 

Voluntary Information-Sharing System Working Group. (2019, 3 19). Pipeline Safety Voluntary 

Informatin-Sharing System Recommendation Report. Washington, DC: Pipeline 

Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Wylie, B., & McDonald, S. (2018). What is a Data Trust? Centre for International Governmance 

Innovation. 
37 

Appendix A. 

Rail Information Sharing Environment (RISE) Pilot Project Charter

Introduction

The goal of the RISE pilot project is to develop a platform through which railroad stakeholders 

can confidently share safety data to identify railroad safety risks or safety improvements.

Collecting data across multiple stakeholders has the potential to provide insights that could not 

be identified by a single stakeholder and offers the potential to advance rail safety. 

This charter documents the guiding principles that will govern the RISE pilot project. A new 

charter will be drafted should the stakeholders wish to continue and expand upon this initiative 

beyond the pilot project. 

Guiding Principles

The following principles will guide the governance of the RISE pilot project towards its stated 

goal. 

Guiding Principle 1: Systemic Assessment

Analyses undertaken by RISE stakeholders shall have the potential to benefit all the 

participating stakeholders and advance railroad safety.

Guiding Principle 2: Stakeholder Organization Commitment 

Stakeholder organizations are committed to participating in the RISE pilot project.

Guiding Principle 3: Articulated Roles and Responsibilities

Each organization participating in the RISE pilot project will identify a primary and 

alternate representative to participate in meetings and to coordinate within their 

organizations to ensure that agreed upon responsibilities are met. 

Guiding Principle 4: Consensus-Based Decision Making

Participating organizations will make key decisions that impact all stakeholders about 

RISE pilot project procedures and operations by consensus. 

Guiding Principle 5: Voluntary Participation 

Participation in the RISE pilot project is entirely voluntary. Stakeholders may suspend or 

end their participation in the RISE pilot project at any time.

Guiding Principle 6: Transparency of Data Sharing 

Each stakeholder will work internally to ensure that relevant employee groups within 

their organization are aware of the data being shared in the RISE pilot project.

Guiding Principle 7: Non-Punitive Data Use

Data provided for use in the RISE pilot project and the results of any analyses will not be 

used for punitive actions. 
38 

Guiding Principle 8: Data De-Identification

RISE pilot project data, information, and results of analyses will be de-identified in a 

manner that protects the identity and privacy of individuals and stakeholder 

organizations. 

Guiding Principle 9: Ensure Data Quality 

Stakeholders will work collaboratively to maintain high standards for data quality in the 

RISE pilot project.

Guiding Principle 10: Transparency of Processes 

RISE pilot project processes will be transparent to stakeholder organizations.

Roles and Responsibilities

The RISE pilot project consists of FRA, participating members of the railroad industry, UMD 

CATT Lab, and Volpe. 

The roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder are to:

• Commit to the Guiding Principles

• Maintain the confidentiality of RISE pilot project data

• Act, as appropriate, on the results and recommendations for safety enhancements

• Provide staff resources to support RISE activities

• Identify two points of contact for each organization to serve as a primary and alternate 

point of contact

Stakeholders will identify at least one topic for study during the pilot project, including the 

scope, objectives, timeline, constraints, and anticipated outcomes. 

Confidentiality of RISE Pilot Project Data

RISE pilot project data will be kept confidential and de-identified as described below. Data are 

de-identified through a process mutually agreed upon by the RISE stakeholders and the pilot 

project’s third-party vendor, UMD CATT Lab. 

• Before any results are reported to the RISE pilot project participants, all output will be 

filtered to ensure nothing can be uniquely identified. 

• RISE pilot project stakeholders will be subject to the provisions of a non-disclosure 

agreement.

• FRA, UMD CATT Lab, and RISE stakeholders will work together to establish a mutually 

agreed upon understanding of FOIA discoverability. 

Data and Information Access, Usage and Retention

Access, use, and disclosure of aggregate information obtained through the RISE pilot project by 

any RISE stakeholder is governed by the Guiding Principles. In addition: 
39 

• Access to RISE project data or information for analysis is entirely controlled by the RISE 

stakeholders. All data provided by stakeholders will remain under their ownership and 

not the ownership of the third party data storage/analysis organization.

• RISE stakeholders will retain all final analysis results (i.e., work products) indefinitely or 

as authorized by group decision. 

• Any algorithms developed by stakeholder organizations, UMD CATT Lab, or contractors 

supporting RISE and used for analysis of RISE safety information will remain the 

property of the stakeholder that developed the algorithm, unless otherwise stipulated in a 

contractual agreement.

• UMD CATT Lab will work with RISE stakeholder organizations to develop a mutually 

agreed upon disaster recovery plan with RISE stakeholders. 

• Access to data and/or analyses of RISE data will only be provided to individuals that 

have been identified by RISE stakeholder organizations. UMD CATT Lab will work with 

RISE stakeholder organizations to develop a strategy to restrict or remove access to any 

individual at any time per the request of the RISE stakeholder organization. 

Signature Page

Signing this document means that the stakeholder organization agrees to abide by the principles, 

roles and responsibilities laid out in this document. 

_____________________________ _________________________________ 

 Name (printed) Organization

_____________________________ 

Signature 
40 

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ACRONYMS EXPLANATION

AI Artificial Intelligence

AAR Association of American Railroads

AEB Automatic Emergency Braking

ASAP Aviation Safety Action Program

ASIAS Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing

ASRS Aviation Safety Reporting System

BTS Bureau of Transportation Statistics

CFR Code of Federal Regulations

CAST Commercial Aviation Safety Team

C3RS Confidential Close Call Reporting System

EB Executive Board

FAMES Fatality Analysis of Maintenance-of-way Employees and Signalmen

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

FRA Federal Railroad Administration

FOQA Flight Operational Quality Assurance

FOIA Freedom of Information Act

FFRDC Funded Research and Development Centers

IEP Internal Evaluation Program

IAT Issues Analysis Team

LOSA Line Operational Safety Audit

MSRI Mariner Safety Research Initiative

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NHTSA National Highway Transportation Safety Administration

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer

PARTS Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety

PHMSA Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration

RISE Railroad Information Sharing Environment

RSAC Railroad Safety Advisory Committee
41 

ACRONYMS EXPLANATION

SafeOCS Safe Outer Continental Shelf Reporting System

SLSI Short Line Safety Institute

SOFA Switching Operations Fatalities Analysis

UMD CATT Lab University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation 

Technology Laboratory

Volpe Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

VDRP Voluntary Disclosure Reporting Program

VIS Voluntary Information-Sharing System