FL: Safety the Focus as American Railroad Industry is Set to Gather in Florida for PTC World Congress

With just under a month to go until the Positive Train Control (PTC) World Congress, the American railroad industry is preparing to visit Florida for two days of expert insight, practical case studies, in-depth discussion, technology launches and networking on April 15-17.

PTC facts in numbers:

• $13.2bn Estimated total cost to install and maintain PTC over next 20 years.
• 22,000 Locomotives need to be shopped + outfitted with interoperable hardware.
• 70,000 miles of tracks to be mapped in the USA.
• 65 fatalities and 1,000+ injuries across 26 NTSB investigations could have been avoided with Positive Train Control technology.

The 2014 Positive Train Control World Congress sees a major focus on safety, which is of course at the heart of the technology, and as the federally mandated deadline of 2015 approaches for its installation uncertainty still surrounds any possible extension to this deadline. Recent rail accidents such as the fatal derailment of the Metro-North Railroad train in December have cast a further spotlight on this legislation and its role for the future of the American railroad industry. This is the only PTC event dedicated to the whole value chain.