AAR: Only 20 percent of PTC network will be ready by 2015

摘要

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) issued a new report to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) updating the industry's progress on installing Positive Train Control (PTC) and said the industry will not meet the December 2015 deadline. According to a statement from the AAR, the nation's freight railroads said that a year-long moratorium on installing 20,000 communication antennas imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), followed by a lengthy federal approval process mandated by the agency, has seriously delayed the implementation of nationwide interoperable PTC. Whereas freight railroads once projected that by 2015 they would have PTC installed on 40 percent of the network mandated by FRA, they now believe, thanks to the FCC issues, only 20 percent of the PTC network will be up and running by the congressionally-imposed deadline.