Section 7308 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act; P. L. 114-94; December 4, 2015) requires the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to assemble and collect data on rail tank cars transporting Class 3 flammable liquids. The objective of this legislation is to track the progress in upgrading the rail tank car fleet to new safety requirements and to provide an annual status report to Congress. 

The first requirement, as described in Section 7308(b), requires the Department to collect data on the following:

• The total number of rail tank cars modified, or retrofitted, to meet the DOT-117R specification or equivalent;
• The total number of tank cars built to meet the DOT-117 specification or equivalent; and
• The total number of tank cars used or likely to be used to transport Class 3 flammable liquids that have not been modified.

The second requirement, as described in Section 7308(c), requires DOT to collect data from tank car shops that build and/or retrofit tank cars to further ensure the upgrading of the Nation’s fleet of rail tank cars that carry flammable liquids. Beginning in 2018, BTS will collect information from tank car retrofitting and manufacturing facilities on the planned and projected number of tank cars to be retrofitted or manufactured in 2018. This data collection will be conducted on an annual basis until 2029.