The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on June 11 reported finalizing the transition to a “new, more user-friendly” online public safety data website as required by Section 22405 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
According to the FRA, it established a site redesign group including stakeholders from FRA, railroads, industry associations, state DOTs, and researchers “to gather user requirements and test for functionality and suitability.” The new site, it said, replaces two older legacy websites. FRA’s previous Office of Safety Analysis website, for instance, was developed in the 1990s and contained approximately 30 pre-made reports “with limited ability for users to customize their queries,” the agency noted. Results were displayed in static tables.
“The new public site incorporates those 30 reports and more into an interactive website that tells a story about the data,” the FRA reported. “The new website includes a combination of data tables, visuals and narrative components. Users can select exactly the data they need through easy-to-operate controls like dropdown filters and parameters and then adjust how the reports display results by, for example, sorting results by different columns in ascending or descending order. FRA will continually update the site in 2025 and beyond, incorporating feedback received from stakeholders.”
Users will also find improved site navigation including descriptive report titles and summaries to make it easier to find data; streamlined reports that reduce multiple tables to one table per report; expanded and standardized filter options across reports to help users find relevant data; and more links to pages to help users navigate more quickly, according to the FRA. The site also includes resource links providing users with “greater explanation of data queries.”
The FRA said that this “collaborative modernization effort” allows it to:
- “Enhance Data Assets by building new data assets, while ensuring data users can find the data they already use and need.
- “Improve Data Accessibility by providing a user-friendly interface to view, filter and export data.
- “Promote Data Literacy by providing easy-to-read data definitions and descriptions for easier data comprehension.
- “Enhance Data Dissemination by providing OData and API access, which enable a direct connection to the data that can automatically refresh and ensure up-to-date data, removing the need to manually export to access new data.”
FRA’s new public site is said to align with the Department of Transportation’s Open Data Portal. It also contains a Data Catalog that lists all available datasets and reports by agency or by topic.
“Our new public FRA Safety Data website increases transparency, which is a [POTUS 47] Administration priority,” FRA Acting Administrator Drew Feeley said. “The new capabilities being introduced will afford users significantly more flexibility when querying our railroad safety data.”
