Connected EnviroView PermitView

Challenge

With roughly 140,000 miles of rails across the United States, railroad companies are frequently approached by third parties who seek to gain access to the rail right-of-way (ROW). Each request to access the ROW represents a risk to the railroad and must be carefully considered and closely monitored. This results in significant time and effort on the part of numerous railroad managers and executives and is a distraction from the company’s core mission of safely and efficiently moving freight.

Solution

TRC’s team of professionals has over a decade of experience managing ROW access for Class I railroads. This expertise has resulted in trusted partnerships which allow us to administer ROW application programs in a streamlined and cost-effective manner. TRC has developed and launched PermitView which provides a platform to systematically accept, review, track and monitor individual requests for ROW access. PermitView is configurable to the individual requirements and desires of each TRC client, incorporating their unique safety, legal, insurance and environmental expectations.

Upon a third-party’s submittal of a ROW access request through PermitView, TRC’s team of professionals assess the completeness of the request and compliance with the railroad requirements. Once it has been determined that all requirements have been adequately addressed, TRC completes a technical review of the proposed workplan and summarizes essential facts or unusual conditions. We then send the application request to the appropriate individual(s) within the railroad company for review.

At each step in the process, automated emails are distributed to the applicant and the railroad informing them in real-time of the current status of the request. Documents and correspondence are securely stored inside PermitView, enabling railroad employees to have the full set of information for each request easily accessible at any time.

As part of the request process, each third-party must pay a fee online via credit card before their request will be considered. The fees are established by the railroad and are intended to cover TRC’s costs for processing requests and hosting PermitView.

Results

PermitView systematically streamlines and organizes the management and processing of access requests in a user-friendly and secure web-based platform that is accessible 24-7. Railroad clients continue to maintain full control over which requests are approved or denied but PermitView and TRC’s professional team significantly reduces the administrative and procedural burden for the railroad. The key benefit is that each access request is processed by TRC at no-cost to the railroad.