Railroad Freight Transportation Research Needs(CP 2) (Conference Proceedings Series)

The primary objective of this conference was to identify railroad freight transportation research needs, opportunities, and priorities--for both the public and private sectors--during the next 10 to 15 years. Four major recurring themes emerged during the conference: customer focus, appropriate use of information, integration among train system components and between technology and people, and the need for cooperation at many different levels--public-private, industry-suppliers, management-labor, and domestic-international. Guided by these themes, conference participants focused on research needs in four major categories: infrastructure, including track, vehicles, and track-train dynamics; command, control, communication, and information systems; service management; and energy and environment. Safety was identified as a critical topic and considered as an element of each major category.