The federal government shutdown this fall provided a stark lesson in resilience — or the dearth of it. Important transportation sectors depending on federal workers slowed to a crawl. Air vacationers confronted lengthy delays as TSA officers and air site visitors controllers known as in sick. Pipeline inspections, port clearances, and security monitoring paused or operated beneath pressure.
In the meantime, privately owned freight rail continued to function. Trains moved. Provide chains remained fluid. Freight clients noticed little disruption. This was no stroke of luck — it was the product of personal capital, disciplined administration and efficiency incentives aligned towards reliability, no matter political drama.
The lesson is easy: When operations rely upon authorities staffing and appropriations, fragility grows. When operations rely upon the non-public sector, resilience grows.
Throughout the shutdown, TSA absenteeism surged. Air site visitors controllers, legally barred from hanging, nonetheless reached fatigue limits that pressured decreased capability. These are crucial capabilities, but the construction ensures vulnerability each time Congress fails to fund the federal government.
Distinction that with freight rail. Even beneath political and operational strain, railroads have invested in automation, predictive upkeep, distributed energy, and community optimization. They’ve persistently delivered extra with fewer employees whereas enhancing security. Federal regulators, nevertheless, try and freeze this progress with outdated mandates — such because the two-person crew requirement — regardless of expertise making single-operator freight trains protected and viable. A federal takeover or expanded micromanagement would calcify outdated practices and sluggish security innovation.
The directors of the rail-regulating alphabet soup — STB, FRA, FTA and others — weren’t essentially on the job throughout the shutdown, but the trains stored operating with out federal oversight.
This resilience isn’t hypothetical. Throughout the COVID‑19 pandemic, non-public freight rail networks continued to make deliveries regardless of the immense challenges posed by the virus. Reasonably than exploiting the disaster, rail firms carried important items — chemical substances for medication, meals packaging, disinfectants, vitality provides and extra — demonstrating that market incentives can produce socially worthwhile outcomes with out heavy-handed, pre‑emptive regulation.
We aren’t out of the woods. A authorities shutdown may return as early as January.
The answer is evident: Important transportation capabilities ought to transfer out of federal operational management and into non-public or unbiased buildings that insulate them from political volatility. Fashionable safety screening may be contracted. Air site visitors management may be shifted to nonprofit, unbiased fashions, as profitable examples overseas show. Freight rail must be allowed to modernize crew necessities and embrace expertise, moderately than stay trapped beneath regulatory custom.
The latest shutdown uncovered a elementary fact: Resilient methods endure when politics fails.
Roslyn Layton is government vp of Strand Seek the advice of, an unbiased consultancy/InsideSources
