Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 93.djvu/578

 93 STAT. 546

PUBLIC LAW 96-73—SEPT. 29, 1979 EXCEPTIONS TO APPLICABILITY OF ROUTE AND SERVICE CRITERIA

SEC. 118. Section 404(c) of the Rail Passenger Service Act (45 U.S.C. 564(c)), as amended by this Act, is further amended by adding at the end thereof the following new paragraph: "(5) The Route and Service Criteria shall not apply to— "(A) decisions of the Corporation to increase or, where construction schedules, other temporary disruptive factors, or seasonal fluctuations in ridership so warrant, to decrease frequency of service on existing routes or portions of existing routes or on routes where an additional frequency of service is being tested; and "(B) rerouting of service between major population centers on existing routes.". ADDITIONAL QUALIFYING ROUTES

SEC. 119. Section 404 of the Rail Passenger Service Act (45 U.S.C. 564) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsections: "(d)(1) Where reductions in operating expenses can be obtained, the Corporation shall operate rail passenger service over any long distance route which is recommended for discontinuance by the Secre92 Stat. 923. tary pursuant to section 4 of the Amtrak Improvement Act of 1978, 45 USC 521 note, with or without any restructuring of such route to serve major population centers as end points or principal intermediate points, in order to maintain a national intercity rail passenger system, if— "(A) the short term avoidable loss per passenger mile on such route, as calculated by the Corporation and projected for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1980, is not more than 7 cents per passenger mile; and "(B) the passenger mile per train mile on such route, as calculated by the Corporation and projected for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1980, is not less than 150. Short term avoidable loss per passenger mile calculated by the Corporation for purposes of this subsection shall be based upon consistently defined factors for all types of routes, and such short term avoidable loss and passenger mile per train mile shall be calculated in the same manner for all routes. The Corporation shall make its calculations under this subsection on the basis of the most recent available statistics for a 90-day period, except that the Corporation may also utilize historical data (such as seasonal fluctuations in ridership) as long as such data is adjusted to reflect the most Report to recent available statistics. The Corporation shall, no later than 30 ^°!!fZ1f fi°=^^ ^^ys after the effective date of this subsection, submit a report to the committees. """"" ""° Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate on the methodology, equations, factors used, assumptions, and results in connection with the calculation of short term avoidable loss per passenger mile and passenger mile per train mile under this subsection. "(2) Where reductions in operating expenses can be obtained, the Corporation shall operate rail passenger service over any shortdistance route which is recommended for discontinuance by the Secretary pursuant to section 4 of the Amtrak Improvement Act of 1978 with or without any restructuring of such route to serve major population centers as end-points or principal intermediate points, in order to maintain a national intercity rail passenger system, if—

�