Opportunity Information: Apply for FR RRD 25 002
The FY25 Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (Rail Safety IDEA) opportunity is a discretionary grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) intended to keep the Rail Safety IDEA program operating through the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The core purpose of the program is to test and mature promising but not yet proven ideas that could meaningfully improve railroad safety and overall railroad performance. Rather than focusing on large, fully developed deployments, Rail Safety IDEA is designed to support early-stage, exploratory work where the concept is innovative and the potential payoff is high, but additional research, prototyping, or proof-of-concept analysis is needed to determine feasibility and value.
A key feature of the Rail Safety IDEA program is that it is meant to draw ideas from a broad range of sources, including researchers, inventors, universities, and private companies, whether or not they are part of the traditional transportation research community. In practice, that means the program is positioned as a front-end innovation pipeline: it creates a structured way to identify novel approaches, evaluate them through exploratory studies, and generate results that can later be scaled, validated, or transitioned into broader rail safety research and implementation efforts if they show merit.
The notice also clarifies the program's sponsorship history and its current rail-only scope. FRA has supported the broader Safety IDEA effort since October 2002, and at one time it was jointly sponsored with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which had been funding the Safety IDEA program since its start in October 2001. However, since 2013 the Rail Safety IDEA program has been fully independent from FMCSA, and as a result any projects supported under this FY25 grant must be railroad-related. This distinction matters because it draws a firm boundary around eligible research topics: the funded activities need to directly address railroads and rail safety, rather than highway, motor carrier, or multimodal safety work that is not rail-centered.
From an administrative standpoint, this opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number FR RRD 25 002) is listed under Assistance Listing/CFDA 20.313 and uses a grant funding instrument. The expected award count is one, with an award ceiling of $500,000, which indicates FRA anticipates making a single grant to support TRB/NAS in administering and carrying out the Rail Safety IDEA program rather than issuing multiple separate awards to individual research teams under this specific federal action. The closing date shown is August 22, 2025, and the posting/creation date is August 5, 2025.
Eligibility is unusually narrow: the National Academy of Sciences is the only entity eligible to apply. That setup reflects the structure of the Rail Safety IDEA program, where NAS/TRB serves as the program manager and administrator, while the concepts that ultimately get explored can originate from many external parties. In other words, the federal grant is aimed at sustaining the program infrastructure at TRB/NAS so it can solicit, select, and oversee exploratory rail safety innovations proposed by the wider community, with the end goal of advancing practical knowledge and tools that can improve the safety and performance of U.S. railroads.Apply for FR RRD 25 002
- The DOT - Federal Railroad Administration in the transportation sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY25 Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (Rail Safety IDEA)" and is now available to receive applicants.
- Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 20.313.
- This funding opportunity was created on 2025-08-05.
- Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-08-22. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
- Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
- The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
- Eligible applicants include: Others.
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Apply for FR RRD 25 002
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| FY26-23-CCD-New_Haven_Line_Improvements New Haven Line - Track Speed Improvement Phase 1 Apply for FR CCD 23 012 Funding Number: FR CCD 23 012 Agency: DOT - Federal Railroad Administration Category: Transportation Funding Amount: $12,000,000 |
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| FY 2026 National Infrastructure Investments Apply for DTOS59 26 RA BUILD Funding Number: DTOS59 26 RA BUILD Agency: 69A345 Office of the Under Secretary for Policy Category: Transportation Funding Amount: $25,000,000 |
| FY22 Essex Junction Multimodal Train and Bus Station Redevelopmnt-Congressional Directed Apply for FR CCD 22 002 Funding Number: FR CCD 22 002 Agency: DOT - Federal Railroad Administration Category: Transportation Funding Amount: $3,000,000 |
| FY22 CRISI- Darby Township PA Main Street Crossing Apply for FR CCD 22 003 Funding Number: FR CCD 22 003 Agency: DOT - Federal Railroad Administration Category: Transportation Funding Amount: $1,000,000 |
| FY 2026 Notice of Funding Opportunity: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Airport Terminal Program (ATP) Grants Apply for FAA ARP IIJA G 26 001 Funding Number: FAA ARP IIJA G 26 001 Agency: DOT Federal Aviation Administration Category: Transportation Funding Amount: Case Dependent |
| FY26 National Network Cooperative Agreement to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation Apply for FR AMT 26 004 Funding Number: FR AMT 26 004 Agency: DOT - Federal Railroad Administration Category: Transportation Funding Amount: $427,739,036 |
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