Sneak Preview: FTA’s Proposed Rule Aims To Boost Transit Safety

(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants Compliance Expert article.) Larger public transportation systems that receive federal financial assistance would need to comply with more-detailed safety requirements — including the establishment of a new safety committee — designed to better protect transit workers and riders under a recently proposed rule by the Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

Interested parties may submit comments on the proposed rule via Regulations.gov by June 26 by referring to Docket No. FTA-2023-0007.

The new requirements are authorized under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (Pub. L. 117-58). Transit providers previously were required to develop public transportation agency safety plans (PTASPs) under statutory provisions at 49 U.S.C. §5329(d) and under FTA regulations at 49 C.F.R. Part 673. To address concerns about a large increase in transit worker assaults, IIJA added new provisions to the PTASP requirements, although most requirements generally apply to transit agencies serving areas with a population of 200,000 or more (i.e., large urbanized areas) that largely coincide with the biggest increases in reported transit worker assaults.

Under the proposed rule, the affected public transit systems would be required to develop plans that include and implement the FTA’s Safety Management System approach, a comprehensive, collaborative and systematic set of strategies to manage safety risk. The proposed rule also incorporates the statutory requirement under IIJA that transit agencies serving small urbanized areas develop their agency safety plans in cooperation with frontline transit worker representatives.

Many transit agencies currently have incorporated mechanisms to allow for confidential close call/near-miss reporting as part of their transit worker safety reporting programs. The proposed rule does not include any new requirements related to these transit worker safety reporting programs.

(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)

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