FRA's Office of Safety promotes and regulates safety throughout the Nation's railroad industry. We employ more than 415 Federal safety inspectors, who operate out of eight regional offices nationally. Our inspectors specialize in five safety disciplines (Hazardous Materials; Motive Power and Equipment ; Operating Practices ; Signal and Train Control ; Track and Structures Division; and Industrial Hygiene Division), and promote numerous initiatives under the Highway-Rail Grade Crossing and Trespasser Prevention Programs.

Additionally, we train and certify State safety inspectors to enforce Federal rail safety regulations. Today, the State Rail Safety Participation Program consists of 30 States employing 160 safety inspectors in the five rail safety disciplines.

By law, FRA is responsible for promoting railroad safety nationwide and enforcing safety standards. Our inspectors conduct site-specific safety inspections of railroads and monitor their compliance with federally mandated safety standards. We also manage a substantial regulatory agenda, which includes items derived from Congressional mandates, as well as FRA's own ideas, and issues raised by various partners in the railroad community. To ensure that regulations meet safety needs while providing flexibility to choose the means of implementation, we established the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee. The RSAC is a collaborative effort that provides us with consensus recommendations from the industry on a range of regulatory issues. 

Central to the success of our rail safety effort is the ability to understand the nature of rail-related accidents and to analyze trends in railroad safety. To do this, we collect rail accident/incident data from the railroads and convert this information into meaningful statistical tables, charts, and reports.