Transit R&D: substance or politics? - Point of View - Brief Article

Railway Age, July, 2002 by Tom McGean, Tom Sullivan

Who is best qualified to determine how to apportion America's transit research and development budget? The choices seem to be: political give and take through the budgetary process; decisions by DOT administrators; outside peer groups and experts; or allowing free enterprise a say through cost sharing.

Since the federal transit program began in the 1960s, all of these have been tried. For the last several years the political approach has been in the ascendancy, with a significant share of the Federal Transit Administration R&D budget "earmarked" by Congress. Other countries, ironically, make more use of the free-market approach with cost sharing between industry and government. The National Academy of Sciences Transit Cooperative Research Program (www.tcrponline.org), widely acknowledged as successful, uses the peer group/expert approach. But this program has had difficulty maintaining its funding levels amidst the conflicting pressures of an increasingly competitive budgetary process.

Congress' reason for taking over R&D funding allocations can perhaps be traced to bad publicity associated with some high-visibility DOT programs in the 1960s and 1970s. But the political process is not always an efficient way to identify important research projects. It sometimes results in funding high-cost, politically popular programs that appear to offer few public benefits.

For example, exotic concepts such as maglev have been perennial political winners since the days of the Office of High Speed Ground Transportation some 40 years ago. But after cost and environmental impact issues are considered, there are only a few isolated corridors where an alignment capable of sustained 200-300 mph speeds can be assembled. At speeds realistic for achievable corridors, steel wheels seem up to the job, as evidenced by the ICEs and TGVs in Europe.

Meanwhile, a major technology revolution is well under way in the rail transit industry as microprocessors are being used for virtually everything: passenger information systems, propulsion, braking, advanced train control, door operation, HVAC. This revolution in rail technology begs for federal R&D leadership to promote communications standards and common message protocols so we do not end up with a "Tower of Babel" of equipment that is non-interoperable, non-maintainable and that may not even be commercially available after a few years. The use of microprocessors and standardized networking can save miles of copper wire, simplify maintenance, and provide vastly improved security and information to operators and customers, provided the technology is properly coordinated and managed. Absent leadership, we may be headed toward an abyss where we cannot couple two carsets from different suppliers into a common train.

A few years ago, visionary government and industry leaders had the foresight to fund through TCRP a highly successful standards effort using the world's largest technical professional society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). It succeeded in securing industry agreement on two protocols and is now working on a common messaging solution (see www.tsd.org/rsc). Funding to date has been at the modest level of a few hundred thousand dollars a year. The industry has been struggling for the past four years to obtain a small research grant to support a demonstration project needed to fully integrate and demonstrate these new IEEE standards. NJ Transit, which understands the criticality of this issue, has agreed to cooperate in an industry-funded demonstration program. The project has received no federal support.

It seems that the critical research and development required to support this microprocessor and communications revolution has had difficulty malting its case in the political world of give and take. As a result, Congressional earmarking may result in inadequate funding for these and other similar low-cost, high-benefit projects. What can we do?

We are encouraged that the Bush Administration seems willing to work closely with the industry through channels such as the TCRP R&D program. We urge it to extend support for open consensus standards such as those recently developed through IEEE. Congressional aides also need our industry's help in better understanding the many new safety, security, and economic benefits microprocessors can provide and the critical need for R&D in the area of interfaces and standards. We need to do a better job of getting our story told. Otherwise, our industry may be forced to fight a rear-guard action to stay ahead of rapidly advancing technology that is moving, literally, at light speed.

Tom McGean is former chair of the IEEE's Rail Transit Vehicle Interface Standards Committee. Tom Sullivan is a principal at Transportation Systems Design, Inc., and a Railway Age contributing editor.