As required by the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) and Amtrak jointly announced the initiation of efforts to establish means to evaluate the quality of intercity passenger rail service.  The FRA released a preliminary staff report that addresses such issues as financial and operating parameters; on-time performance and delays; service availability and connectivity to other modes of transportation; and other, more subjective service and quality components such as customer satisfaction with various aspects of Amtrak’s operations.