In April 2025, the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure published Driving Regulatory Innovation for Safer Railroading, examining how the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) waiver process can either enable or delay the adoption of new safety technologies in the rail industry. Automated Track Inspection, or ATI, was the central case study.
Automated Track Inspection refers to multiple technologies mounted on rail cars or locomotives that precisely measure track geometry defects as the train moves across the network. The technology has been around since the early 2000s, and is capable of detecting numerous defects impossible to spot with the human eye. In some pilot programs, ATI identified more than 10 times as many defects as traditional visual inspections.
Between 2016 and 2021, railroads had produced promising results using ATI systems to measure track conditions, but expanded testing remained dependent on individual waiver proceedings that could be lengthy, inconsistent, and influenced by politics, rather than safety. Starting in 2021, the FRA began denying ATI waiver requests and extensions from various Class I railroads, ultimately leading to a legal fight in which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that “BNSF has made evidence-based claims that ATI is safer and more efficient than visual inspection alone,” and that the FRA’s reasoning for denial was “arbitrary and capricious.”
A few years later, the ATI waiver landscape looks notably different. On December 5, 2025, the FRA approved a five-year temporary waiver requested by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). Significantly, this new waiver is not specific to any single company, and the framework is available to any railroad that complies with its conditions. This ruling moves ATI toward a standardized and national testing program that will be able to collect concrete data on safety improvements.
The main opponent of ATI waivers has been the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED). The union has consistently opposed expansion of many ATI technology waivers due to the potential for fewer manual inspections. The primary argument against ATI is that track geometry represents only a fraction of potential defects, and that many others require the presence of human beings to detect.
Existing regulations generally require certain tracks to be inspected visually at least twice each week. The AAR requested permission to reduce that frequency to twice per month while using qualifying track geometry measurement systems at least monthly. FRA approved a narrower change, allowing participating railroads to reduce visual inspections to once per week. It also retained existing track traversal requirements and imposed stricter timelines for responding to defects than AAR originally proposed.
Participating railroads must also remain below set rates for geometry defects and the more serious “multiclass drop” defects. Exceeding defect thresholds triggers a return to the normal visual inspection schedule. Inspection results must be reported, along with defect rates and derailments. These conditions reflect the posture of the FRA: there is enough evidence to justify broader testing, but further data collection and additional safeguards are necessary.
Implementation of the new ATI framework began quickly, with Union Pacific and BNSF beginning deployments in spring 2026. CSX followed in July, while Norfolk Southern began in August.
These deployments move the policy debate beyond limited pilot programs or even political disagreement. The FRA will now be able to observe how the technology performs across different railroads, territories, traffic levels, and operating conditions. If the waiver program can satisfactorily validate the safety improvements from ATI systems on a uniform, national scale, it could support permanent changes to federal inspection regulations. The next several years should provide a much larger evidence base. The waiver expires in December 2030, and FRA may modify, suspend, or end its application if safety performance or compliance problems emerge. Whatever the eventual outcome, the national waiver provides a clearer path for testing new technology at scale and should produce a stronger basis for future rail safety policy compared to the fragmented waiver process Aii examined last year.
Written by Owen Rogers, Public Policy Analyst
The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) is an independent, national research and educational organization working to advance innovation across industry and public policy. The only nationwide public policy think tank dedicated to infrastructure, Aii explores the intersection of economics, law, and public policy in the areas of climate, damage prevention, eminent domain, energy, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and transportation.