WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday passed legislation that would give railroads an additional three years to install technology intended to prevent train crashes, potentially averting major disruptions in the nation’s freight and commuter rail systems.

The rail industry and its customers have long sought an extension to the year-end deadline to install the safety system, called positive train control, on more than 60,000 miles of track. A Government Accountability Office report in September found that the industry would not be able to meet the deadline because of several problems, including a limited number of suppliers of the new technology. The office recommended that Congress extend the deadline.

The provision approved Tuesday was part of a short-term transportation measure that would fund and extend the authorization for federal highway and transit programs through Nov. 20. The current funding bill expires this week. The Senate, which voted in July to ease the deadline on positive train control, is expected to take up a similar short-term transportation measure this week.

After a train crash in California in 2008 killed 25 people, lawmakers gave railroad companies, including Amtrak, seven years to complete installation of the safety system, which monitors the speed of trains and automatically slows them if they approach curves too quickly. Federal investigators say the technology would probably have prevented the Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia in May that killed eight people.