Railroad Cost Recovery Procedures-Productivity Adjustment

In a decision served on January 29, 2018, the Surface Transportation Board adopted as final its calculation of the productivity adjustment, with the linking factor for the year 2015, proposed in its September 29, 2017 decision in the same docket. See R.R. Cost Recovery Procedures--Productivity Adjustment, EP 290 (Sub-No. 4), slip op. at 4 (STB served Sept. 29, 2017). The productivity change for 2015, based on changes in input and output levels from 2014, is 0.939, which is a decrease of 7.8% from the rate of productivity growth in 2014 relative to 2013 (1.018). Incorporating the 2015 value with the values from 2011-2014 period produces a geometric average productivity growth of 0.994 for the five-year period 2011-2015, or -0.6% per year.