E. RSCD Report

The Presiding Officer and Assigned Commissioner issued a ruling on May 30, 2001 that directed RSCD to file and serve a report by June 7, 2001 with recommendations on the rail transit systems' petitions.

Although RSCD does not concur with the petitioners' proposal to fully exempt rail transit systems from rotating outages, RSCD does recommend an exemption from rotating outages for those sections of track to which emergency response personnel have limited access, such as exclusive right-of-ways, ballasted tracks, underground sections, tunnels, tubes, aerial structures, and control centers.

On June 26, 2001, the Presiding Officer and Assigned Commissioner issued a ruling that required RSCD to submit a supplemental report by July 9, 2001 listing specific facilities that meet its recommended exemption from rotating outages. The ruling asked all rail transit systems which had filed petitions to cooperate and assist RSCD in obtaining the supplemental information. The ruling also directed respondent utilities to use RSCD's supplemental report to conduct a load/reserve margin analysis by July 16, 2001 to determine the impact of RSCD's proposed partial rotating outage exemption on their total system load available for rotating outage. The ruling invited parties to file and serve comments on the RSCD and respondent utilities reports within three days from the date filed.

1. RSCD Recommendations

RSCD proposed the following recommendations.

a. Rail Transit Systems

i. Exempt those sections of a rail transit systems' track that have limited access to emergency response personnel from any rotating outage.

ii. PG&E, SDG&E or SCE, as appropriate should provide one hour advanced person-to-person telephone notifications of rotating outages to the Operations Control Center of any affected rail transit system.

iii. Each rail transit system should establish and implement procedures for rotating outages to ensure the safety of pedestrian evacuees on or about the right-of-way. Where there is a shared common corridor with a freight or commuter railroad, the rail transit system should establish and implement procedures to contact the freight or commuter railroad's train dispatching center advising of the outage, any necessary evacuations or other emergency activities.

iv. Rail transit systems and freight or commuter railroads operating in a common corridor should establish procedures jointly to ensure the safety of pedestrian evacuees on or about the right-of-way.

v. PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE should establish necessary and reasonable mitigation measures with each impacted rail transit system. PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE should file and serve a report within 30 days of this decision on the necessary and reasonable mitigation measures which the respondent utility and impacted rail transit system agree to including the measures that the respondent utility will implement. Any rail transit system may file a complaint with the Commission if safety issues involving this matter are not resolved with the respondent utility.

vi. Rail transit systems should determine whether they are subject to rotating outages on those portions of track receiving electric power from sources other than the respondent utilities.

vii. The exemption from rotating outages granted to BART in D.01-04-006 should remain in effect.

viii. The underground exemptions from rotating outages granted to MUNI in D.01-04-006 should remain in effect. With respect to the non-underground portion of MUNI, PG&E should establish necessary and reasonable mitigation measures with MUNI.

b. Grade Crossing Warning Devices

i. Rail Transit systems and freight or commuter railroads operating in common corridors should coordinate and jointly test grade crossing warning devices' emergency battery life.

ii. Rail transit systems and freight or commuter railroads operating in common corridors should conduct planned exercises and safety efficiency testing of the recommended emergency procedures.

iii. Freight and commuter railroads should test grade crossing warning devices under simulated "power-off" to determine current condition of estimated back-up life of the emergency batteries.

iv. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems should maintain and replace, as necessary, batteries in high rail traffic use crossings.

v. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems should ensure that crossing gates "fail" in the down position.

vi. Cities, counties, and other agencies that operate nearby preempted traffic signals connected to grade crossings should develop alternative means of providing warnings to motorists, including, but not limited to, battery backup, police, and flag persons.

vii. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems, as necessary, should operate at "restricted speed" (e.g. ability to stop in ½ the range of vision, not to exceed 20 mph) over grade crossings interconnected with preempted traffic signals during power outages.

c. Freight and Commuter Railroads

i. PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE, as appropriate should provide one-hour advanced person-to-person telephone notifications of a rotating outage to each OCC or central dispatching center of any impacted freight and commuter railroad.

ii. Where common corridors are shared with rail transit systems, freight and commuter railroads should establish and implement procedures to ensure the safety of rail transit pedestrian evacuees on or about the right-of-way. Those procedures should include notification from the rail transit systems' operations control center to the respective freight or commuter railroad's train dispatching center advising of the outage and any necessary evacuations.

iii. Rail transit systems and freight and commuter railroads should jointly establish procedures to ensure the safety of pedestrian evacuees on or about the right-of-way.

iv. PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE should establish necessary and reasonable mitigation measures with each impacted rail transit system. PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE should file and serve a report within 30 days of this decision on the necessary and reasonable mitigation measures which the respondent utility and each impacted freight and commuter railroad agree to including the measures that the respondent utility will implement.

v. Each freight or commuter railroad may file a complaint with the Commission if there are unresolved disputes.

2. RSCD Supplemental Report

In its supplemental report, RSCD recommends that the entire SCE portion of LACMTA's Green Line and the SCE portion of LACMTA's Blue Line, except for the Blue Line street-running sections in Downtown Long Beach, be exempted from rotating outages, as detailed in Appendix A to this decision. For SCVTA, RSCD recommended that the SCVTA Control Center and those portions of SCVTA track that are exclusive right-of-way and ballasted be exempted from rotating outages, as detailed in Appendix B to this decision. RSCD made no recommendation for SDTI because SDTI did not submit sufficient information.

RSCD also recommends that the following common corridor mitigation measures be adopted.

i. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems should coordinate and jointly test grade crossing warning devices which are separately maintained within a common corridor. Power source variability, operational characteristics and battery life of the two systems should be confirmed.

ii. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems should test grade crossing warning devices under simulated "power-off" conditions to determine current condition of and estimated back-up life of emergency batteries. All railroads and rail transit systems should ensure that crossing gates "fail" in the down position as designed.

iii. Cities, counties, and other agencies that operate nearby preempted traffic signals connected to grade crossings should determine how a power outage will affect these devices. If the preemptive signals have no battery backup system, or they lose functionally during and after a blackout, then alternative means of providing warnings to motorists must be employed. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems not otherwise affected should, as necessary, operate at "restricted speed" (e.g. able to stop in ½ the range of vision, not to exceed 20 mph) over grade crossings interconnected with preempted traffic signals affected by a blackout but not protected by other alternative means.

iv. Freight and commuter railroads and rail transit systems should maintain emergency procedures that address the risks presented by the evacuation of pedestrian passengers stranded by a blackout affecting a rail transit vehicle mid-route through a common corridor right-of-way where freight and/or commuter trains may be operating at full speed. Carriers should ensure effectiveness of emergency procedures through employee testing and unannounced mock drills.

v. This order should be served on all railroad corporations operating in California and they should be added to the service list.

RSCD received additional information from SDTI and filed a second supplemental report on July 31, 2001, that identified the specific SDTI facilities and sections of track that meet RSCD's rotating outage exemption criteria. (Appendix C.)

3. Impact of RSCD proposed Rotating Outage Exemptions

PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE timely filed and served their reports on the results of their load/reserve margin analysis and impact on total system load outages.

The following tabulation shows the number of circuits, megawatts, and total system load affected, excluding circuits already exempted, by RSCD's recommended exemption for rotating outages.

Affected
Utility	Circuits	Megawatts	Load
PG&E5	26	17.3	.10%
SDG&E	15	93.8	2.00
SCE	217	46.8	0.21

⁵ PG&E included, in its report, circuits and megawatts already exempted from rotating outages for other purposes. Such circuits have no further impact on the utilities' total system load available for rotating outages. PG&E also included circuits that have back up circuits not requiring an exemption at this time. However, if the status of the back up circuits or exemption status of these already exempt circuits change, rail transit systems should continue to be granted an exemption from rotation outages on such circuits. ⁶ Although a total of 12 circuits are impacted, 5 circuits utilizing 73.9 MW have back-up circuits not requiring an exemption and 5 circuits utilizing 79.6 MW are already exempted. ⁷ A total of 39 circuits are impacted, of which 18 circuits are already exempt.