Martin Oberman is chairman of the US Surface Transportation Board (STB). In part two of this interview, edited for length and clarity, Oberman addresses his priorities, ongoing agency proposals and potential policy changes.
What are your priorities right now?
If you look at the big picture, we have a lot of pending dockets. Some have been open for years. Obviously, one of the most important, and one that will get acted on this year, is EP 711, the reciprocal switching proposal.
That's high priority. It is my highest rulemaking priority right now.
We have ongoing cases, including some significant ones that have to be decided. Some that have been languishing should get attention.
One of the things that is an eye-opener for people who do not work inside STB is that rulemakings are extraordinarily complex. One reason is that we have many — sometimes hundreds — of stakeholders who file comments that they want to be heard. We have to analyze and take those things into account.
Two, the industry is extraordinarily complicated, and we are trying to regulate in a way that does not have unintended bad consequences or to over-regulate.
For example, we spent an enormous amount of time in 2019 on demurrage, and we issued a very lengthy policy statement and a couple of rules dealing with billing requirements. We have not heard any complaints that the rule is not a good one.
But I am beginning to hear complaints from shippers who say they still can't get the information they need and are having a hard time analyzing some of the bills they get.
Perhaps the billing rule didn't require as much information as is needed because the delivery of railcars, and why they're late, and why the shipper doesn't get them back in time is so multifactor and complicated.
What else do you think STB should consider reviewing?
There are a number of areas that ought to be looked at.
The railroads have been trying to get us to change revenue adequacy [rules]. And I have been interested in more competition, which leads me to say, "I'd like to think about the bottleneck rule, (which sets rules for when a shipper can get a quote from another carrier). And I would like to think about gateway protocols. I'd like to think about all things that seem to limit competition." But there is nothing proposed in those areas.
How has the employee shortage affected rail service? Are there other factors affecting operations?
Almost everything that I hear comes back to employment one way or the other.
There are not enough train and engine workers to move trains; not enough customer service representatives to personally make sure customers are getting what they need; not enough mechanics in the shops to keep the locomotives repaired.
It's across the board. Almost every problem I hear about one way or another comes back to resource levels, including resources of locomotives. But that is often related to labor.
Has the industry reached a point where it has as a sufficient number of employees or are more needed?
No, we're not close. If you go back to the high point, we were down 45,000 people, which was about 30pc. [Railroads have hired back about] 8,000 people. I'm not saying you have to hire back 45,000 people. But you need more than 8,000 people.
So I don't think hiring is over. One of the bad effects of the huge reduction in force is that a lot of the most experienced and senior people are gone.
With the difficulty in driving a very heavy three-mile-long train over a mountain range, you do not want an engineer who just finished an eight-week course in a simulator. So just adding numbers does not mean that now the problem is over. These people are going to have to get seasoned with on-the-job experience.
So, I think the industry will continue to pay the price for some period of time, as the new workforce gets up to snuff.
