The following statement was prepared by the Federal Railroad Administration and provided to the Rail 

Vehicles Access Advisory Committee on December 4, 2014, regarding the attachment titled “Guidance 

for ADAAG Applicability for Passenger Rail Equipment”.

PRIIA – Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008. The Passenger Rail Investment and 

Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) reauthorizes the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better 

known as Amtrak, and strengthens the US passenger rail network by tasking Amtrak, the U.S. 

Department of Transportation (US DOT), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), states, and other 

stakeholders in improving service, operations, and facilities. PRIIA focuses on intercity passenger rail, 

including Amtrak’s long-distance routes and the Northeast Corridor (NEC), state-sponsored corridors 

throughout the Nation, and the development of high-speed rail corridors.

The Technical Subcommittee (TSC) of the PRIIA 305 Next Generation Equipment Committee tasked the 

Accessibility Working Group (AWG) with reviewing the 2004 ADAAG and identifying accessibility 

requirements contained within ADAAG that could potentially apply to the PRIIA next generation 

passenger rail equipment. In December 2012, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) issued 

guidance that provides, “In a situation in which no specific standard is found in [49 C.F.R.] Part 38, 

passenger railroads should meet their nondiscrimination obligation by designing and building railcars 

compliant with the [ADAAG] standards available for comparable elements in buildings and facilities.” 

Thus, this task was an attempt to determine where the regulations were silent and to identify 

potentially applicable sections of the ADAAG that might apply to passenger rail equipment. 

It is also hoped that by having this document (i.e., the attached Guidelines for ADAAG Applicability for 

Passenger Rail Equipment) available, railroads and operators may be less likely to design railcar features 

that are not usable by persons with disabilities.

For this review, the AWG created a subgroup team of seven members. The team consisted of 

representatives of the Federal Railroad Administration, the U.S. Access Board, Amtrak, and Oregon State 

University’s National Center for Accessible Transportation. First, the team reviewed 49 C.F.R. Part 38, 

section by section, to identify all the elements in a railcar that Part 38 addresses. Next, the team 

reviewed the ADAAG for potential applicability in areas where Part 38 was silent. Finally, the full AWG 

committee reviewed and approved the team’s work. The team’s complete review is contained within 

the attached “Guidelines for ADAAG Applicability for Passenger Rail Equipment” document. 

It is important to note that the AWG did not analyze whether a particular ADAAG guideline was feasible 

for application in a railcar design, only whether a potential ADAAG equivalent guideline existed or not. 

In addition accessibility design dimensions adopted for the PRIIA Bi-level Passenger Rail Car 

specifications and those that are still being considered for the Single-level Passenger Rail Car 
specifications (e.g., heavier lift load requirement, longer lift platform, wider vestibule, and larger 

wheelchair space) are not included in the attached review table. 

While this effort enabled the AWG to compile a more extensive list of guidance for accessible design in 

future rail vehicles than is available in Part 38’s regulations alone, the AWG cautions the PRIIA TSC and 

others who read this document to not infer that if an element is not defined or not contained in the 

attached document that by default there is no accessibility requirement for that railcar feature. One 

should remember that the ultimate goal of accessible design is to make a railcar feature “usable” by 

persons with disabilities. The ADAAG and Part 38 are tools for determining what makes a feature 

usable. However, provided they do not conflict with the regulations, there may be other transportation 

industry standards and recommended practices for accessibility that could also be adopted for rail 

vehicles