Off the rails and behind the times: How FRA rules hinder automated track inspection

The railway system has long been the backbone of the American economy by connecting communities, supporting supply chains, and carrying passengers safely to their destinations. That is why it is notable that Automated Track Inspection (ATI), a technology that could prevent accidents and reduce costly delays, has reappeared in headlines.

A recent Washington Post op-ed questioned why this promising tool remains sidelined. Under current regulations, railroads must obtain a waiver from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to implement ATI in place of standard human inspections. FRA officials say the waiver requests have become bottlenecked because petitions lack detailed safety data or impact analysis. Meanwhile, an article from the Washington Examiner points to union opposition and political considerations as potential culprits.

Additionally, the FRA published a formal public notice in November for the BNSF Railway’s ATI waiver-extension request, officially triggering a public comment period that indicates that the ATI regulatory debate is far from settled.

ATI uses sensors, machine-vision, and lasers to continuously monitor track geometry and detect subtle defects that human eyes typically miss. As the Association of American Railroads highlights in its primer, ATI enables earlier repairs, more frequent and consistent inspections, more reliable preventative maintenance, and stronger long-term track health. These benefits matter not only to the railway operators, but also to anyone who uses or depends on the railway system.

Despite these advantages, ATI implementation has lagged in the United States. This gap is best understood by examining the regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles that continue to stall progress.

Outdated track inspection rules
The core inspection rules (known as Part 213 regulations) are enforced by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and were first issued in 1971. One core rule is that the inspections must be conducted “on foot or by traversing the track in a vehicle.” Furthermore, the record-keeping needs to be certified by a human inspector. This means that ATI cannot de facto replace human inspections because the law assumes that track inspection equals a person walking or riding slowly along the tracks.

Another pertinent rule is that FRA regulations require inspections at fixed intervals, e.g., daily, weekly, or biweekly, depending on the track class. Since FRA regulation prescribes inspection frequency and method, railroads cannot primarily or solely rely on ATI to meet regulatory obligations. Even if ATI identifies every defect before an inspection scheduled per FRA regulation, there still needs to be the visual inspection at the mandated time. This undermines ATI’s advantage of reducing dedicated inspection trips that interrupt operations.

A waiver process stuck in the 1970s
Given how Part 213 is structured, railroads cannot fully implement ATI in lieu of fixed-interval human inspections without requesting a waiver from the FRA. In theory, a waiver process should strike a balance between safety and timeliness, allowing railroads to deploy modern technology while remaining compliant with FRA safety standards.  In practice, the system is slow, opaque, and incapable of keeping up with technological change.

 A 2025 report from the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (AII) on the FRA waiver process highlights several systemic problems, whether it is out-of-date regulations, inconsistent requirements, or political influence. There are real-world examples to illustrate AII’s point.

In 2021, BNSF Railway sought an extension to use ATI in the Powder River region. The FRA denied the waiver extension, prompting BNSF to appeal to the Fifth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals (BNSF Railway v. FRA). This Court ended up ruling that the denial was “arbitrary and capricious.” Similarly, in November 2024, the industry group Association of American Railroads (AAR) formally filed litigation after the FRA failed to act on multiple overdue waiver requests.

It is impossible to determine the full scope of the problem because FRA does not publish data on waiver requests, such as how many waivers are pending, how long they have been stalled, or what consequences the delays create. This lack of transparency is telling since it suggests the process is neither efficient nor predictable.

At its core, the waiver process assumes that fixed human inspections are the ideal standard. Any deviation, even when clearly safer or more efficient, requires a waiver. The process was designed for small exceptions, not systemic technological innovation. Modern ATI requests challenge this underlying logic, creating high stakes for regulators who must approve deviations from decades-old mandates. It is no wonder that delays, denials, and disputes continue to make headlines.

Ultimately, this bottleneck slows the adoption of technology that could improve safety, reduce operational costs, and allow for predictive maintenance. Until the FRA streamlines or modernizes its waiver process, railroads are trapped in a regulatory limbo that treats innovation as a concession they should feel they need to grovel for rather than a safety-enhancing upgrade that the rail industry needs in 2025.

Continued regulatory inertia
Recognizing the growing tension between modern technology and antiquated rules, the FRA proposed new rulemaking in October 2024 that would mandate ATI (under the name Track Geometry Measurement Systems or TGMS) for certain classes of railroads. It has been more than a year since this proposal and it still has not been finalized, which underscores how sluggish regulatory change can be.

Even if the changes were made, the underlying problem remains. This mandate would not be in lieu of visual inspections, but in addition to visual inspections. Mandating both automated and manual inspections would add new burdens, including more labor hours, reporting requirements, data collection, retraining, and record retention.

Railroad operators are responsible for track safety and should be allowed to choose which mix of inspections works best for their operations. The proposed rule would only add regulatory burdens while locking railroads into a one-size-fits-all mandate. Instead of freeing railroads to optimize technological progress, this proposed rule would stifle innovation with a modus operandi that does not serve the rail industry in 2025.

Time to clear the tracks for ATI
This is more than a drawn-out waiver process and the FRA’s clinging to 1970s-era inspection mandates. It is yet another example of how systemic regulatory apparatuses stifle innovation, deter investment, and undermine the railroad industry’s ability to modernize. The Eno Center for Transportation argues that the FRA should work towards “opportunities for reducing the regulatory burden and modernizing regulations on railroads with the objective of spurring innovation and increasing the competitiveness of rail.” This is surely correct.

The waiver process treats reform as a concession that needs to be begged for rather than a recognition that ATI advances safety and efficiency. This intransigence hides behind antiquated regulations and burdensome paperwork to avoid advancing the increased safety that the FRA’s mission purports to support. The Trump administration has an opportunity to cut through this red tape by reforming Part 213 to streamline the waiver process and enable railroads to deploy ATI at scale. Unless the FRA abandons its reflexive resistance to progress, the rail network will continue to be hampered by unnecessary bureaucracy.