National Academies Press: OpenBook

Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records (2018)

Chapter: 2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance

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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
×
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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
×
Page 16
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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
×
Page 17
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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
×
Page 18
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Suggested Citation:"2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25144.
×
Page 19

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13 2 Background on the U.S. Public Transit Sector and Its Safety Performance This chapter provides general background on the U.S. transit industry’s composition and safety record. It concludes with a discussion of the con- cerns that have given rise to calls for more rigorous and concerted safety management and oversight. COMPOSITION OF THE U.S. TRANSIT INDUSTRY Transit systems throughout the United States serve a wide variety of mar- kets, large and small. The systems move millions of daily commuters; pro- vide critical transportation services to people with disabilities, the young, and the elderly; and are the primary, and often only, means of mobility for low-income individuals in both rural and urban areas and for others with limited access to private automobiles. Each year the federal government distributes grants under 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53 for transit capital investment and planning, as well as some op- erating assistance, to about 6,800 transit systems across the country (APTA 2017). State and local governments, which operate most public transit agen- cies, match and supplement these grants with funds for operations, equip- ment, and facilities. The 6,800 Chapter 53 federal grant recipients vary widely in the nature, size, and scope of their operations, services, equip- ment, and infrastructure. Most recipients (90 percent) only operate buses and other on-road vehicles. Fifteen recipients operate heavy rail (subway systems), 23 operate light rail (including streetcar systems), and 27 operate commuter rail systems, usually in combination with buses. Some recipients operate a combination of these systems (APTA 2017). About 6,300 grant

14 ADMISSIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY OF TRANSIT SAFETY PLANNING RECORDS recipients operate only demand-response (non–fixed route) systems, under which riders schedule the service in advance (APTA 2017).1 Collectively, in 2014, the most recent year for which complete data are available, the 6,800 systems receiving federal aid provided about 10.8 billion passenger trips and employed more than 400,000 workers (APTA 2017). In 2014, more than one-third (37 percent) of all transit passenger trips were made on heavy rail, even though there are only 15 such systems (APTA 2017, 43). Nevertheless, buses remain the most heavily used mode of transit. Most buses operate on fixed routes and sometimes as bus rapid transit (under this arrangement, the buses may have dedicated lanes or cor- ridors). In 2014, the country’s transit bus systems, together with demand- response services, accommodated just over half (53 percent) of all transit passenger trips (ferries and other forms of transit rail accounted for the remaining 10 percent) (APTA 2017, 38). The country’s 10 most heavily used transit systems accounted for more than 60 percent of all transit passenger trips in 2014, with metropolitan New York’s transit properties by far the largest. On an urbanized area (which may contain several separate transit agencies) basis, metropolitan New York accounted for 40.5 percent of all passenger trips; metropolitan Los Angeles was a distant second with 6.3 percent (APTA 2017). The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) of New York alone accommodated about 3.5 billion passenger trips in 2014, or 33 percent of all trips made by transit in the United States. The second-largest urban transit agency, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), accommodated 514 million passenger trips (4.8 percent of all trips). Eighty percent of all passenger trips made in 2014 were on just 42 systems (APTA 2017). While metropolitan New York accounts for more transit passenger trips than any other region, transit use in general is concentrated in a handful of urbanized areas that have both rail and bus systems. The 10 largest U.S. transit agencies are located in eight metropolitan areas (APTA 2017): • New York–Newark (MTA, New Jersey Transit); • Chicago (CTA); • Los Angeles (LA Metro); • Washington, D.C. (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Author- ity [WMATA]); • Boston (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority); • Philadelphia (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority); 1 Demand-response systems are non–fixed route systems of transporting individuals that require advance scheduling by the customer. They include services provided by public and private entities and nonprofits (49 CFR § 604.3(g)). Certain types of demand-response services are often described as paratransit.

BACKGROUND ON THE U.S. PUBLIC TRANSIT SECTOR 15 • San Francisco (San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Bay Area Rapid Transit); and • Atlanta (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority). Transit agencies range from very large multimodal systems like those described above to single-vehicle demand-response providers. Transit agen- cies operating in urbanized areas provided 98 percent of all transit pas- senger trips despite making up only 12 percent of the country’s agencies (APTA 2017). Demand-response systems, which make up 93 percent of all transit agencies, provide only 0.5 percent of all passenger trips. Figure 2-1 shows the number of vehicle revenue hours (the hours that vehicles travel in revenue service during which they are serving passengers), the passenger miles traveled, and the total trips by transit mode. Rail systems provide nearly as many trips as do bus systems, but in fewer than one-third the hours of service, which indicates that rail systems are used more heavily than bus systems. These statistics reflect the significant differences between the largest and smallest transit agencies. Many more agencies are on the small end of the size spectrum than are on the large end. The large agencies operating many transit modes face different safety challenges because of their complex operations, and their capabilities for safety planning and management ac- 51.8 160.7 55.9 32.4 18.7 1 4.9 5.3 0.1 Rail Bus Demand-Response Total Vehicle Revenue Hours (Millions) Total Passenger Miles (Billions) Total Passenger Trips (Billions) FIGURE 2-1 Transit mode vehicle revenue hours, passenger miles, and unlinked trips, 2015. SOURCE: NTD 2016.

16 ADMISSIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY OF TRANSIT SAFETY PLANNING RECORDS tivities are different from those of the thousands of small and medium-size agencies operating only over-the-road vehicles. TRANSIT SAFETY RECORD GENERALLY Public transit’s safety record is generally considered to be among the best of all the passenger transportation modes. It is surpassed only by that of aviation. Comparisons of fatalities and injuries across modes are given in Table 2-1. Fatalities and injuries on the highways are, respectively, approxi- mately 140 times and 100 times greater than those in transit, although the rates of fatalities per passenger mile are closer. Among the reasons for transit’s generally good safety record are that bus transit vehicles are larger and more substantially built than are light- duty passenger vehicles and trucks and that they operate at slower speeds, often in city traffic. Many transit rail systems, especially heavy rail, operate TABLE 2-1 Transportation Safety Data, All Modes, 2015 Mode Passenger Miles Traveled (millions) Fatalities Injured Personsa Fatality Rateb Injury Ratea,b Air 641,905 404 284 0.06 0.04 Highway 4,473,336 35,092 2,424,000 0.78 54.19 Transit 57,012 254 24,252 0.45 42.54 a Injuries are counted as any bodily injury requiring immediate medical attention away from the scene of the incident. b Rate per 100 million passenger miles. SOURCES: BTS 2017a,b,c. TABLE 2-2 Transit Safety Data by Mode, 2014 Fatalities Injured Persons Fatality Ratea Injury Ratea Bus 86 13,584 1.7 265 Light rail 39 917 8.1 190 Heavy rail 93 5,286 2.4 137 Commuter rail 85 1,433 21.9 369 Demand-response 10 1,669 9.8 1,636 a Rate per 100 million passenger trips. SOURCE: BTS 2017d.

BACKGROUND ON THE U.S. PUBLIC TRANSIT SECTOR 17 on exclusive rights-of-way. Transit systems also have highly trained, profes- sional operators. Table 2-2 compares reported fatalities and injuries, both in absolute numbers and rates per passenger trip, across transit modes. The data in- clude injured and killed passengers, workers, and members of the general public but exclude known suicides. Light rail is a service operating on fixed rails in either shared or exclusive lanes. It usually operates at street level. Heavy rail is typically represented by subway systems, and commuter rail operates between a central city and outlying areas with relatively long dis- tances between stops and only one or two stations in the central city area. Despite a generally strong safety record, the transit industry’s fatality rate increased from 2007 to 2013, as shown in Figure 2-2. The data shown in this figure come from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and thus do not include commuter rail systems, which are regulated by the Federal Railroad Administration. Interpretation of these statistics should take into account that most of the fatalities reported (722, or 75 percent) were on heavy rail systems. Most fatalities (77 percent) involving rail systems were among people who were not riders or employees, and most of these fa- talities (81 percent) were trespassers or persons committing suicide (FTA 2016). Of the nonsuicide and nontrespasser fatalities, 39 percent were asso- ciated with customer behavior (slips and falls and imprudent behavior), 30 percent with public behavior (pedestrian and motorist actions), 8 percent ' 18.84 14.61 19.44 17.83 19.02 21.41 21.126.61 4.78 6.7 6.72 6.8 9.88 8.1 149.7 208.1 201.6 224.7 235.3 243.1 245.9 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Fatalities with Trespassers/Suicides Fatalities Without Trespassers/Suicides Injuries FIGURE 2-2 Total injuries and fatalities per 100 million transit vehicle revenue miles. SOURCE: FTA 2016.

18 ADMISSIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY OF TRANSIT SAFETY PLANNING RECORDS with worker action and infrastructure actions, and 23 percent with other factors (FTA 2016). However, even when suicides and trespassing fatali- ties are removed from the data, a slight increasing trend remains. A more pronounced increasing trend exists in injury rates. CONCERNS ABOUT TRANSIT SAFETY MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT Even though public transit’s safety record is widely viewed as strong in the aggregate, a number of high-profile incidents have raised concerns about lax safety management and oversight by some systems. Over the past de- cade, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has investigated a number of rail transit incidents in which investigators observed deficien- cies in the training and supervision of employees, in routine maintenance of equipment and infrastructure, and in safety rules and procedures. The following are among the incidents: • Two WMATA trains collided near Fort Totten station on June 22, 2009. Nine people were killed and 52 were injured. • In a 10-month period from May 2013 to March 2014, Metro- North Railroad was involved in five crashes in New York and Connecticut that killed 6 people and injured 126 (NTSB 2015). • Several unoccupied CTA cars collided with a CTA train on Septem- ber 30, 2013. Twenty-four people were hospitalized. • A CTA train rode over its bumping post at the end of the track at O’Hare Airport station and went up an escalator at the end of the track on March 24, 2014. Twenty-four people were injured. • A WMATA train stopped in a tunnel near L’Enfant Plaza station because of electrical arcing from the rail power supply on January 12, 2015. One person died and 92 were injured. As a result of the WMATA incidents, and specifically the 2015 L’Enfant Plaza incident, NTSB urgently recommended that oversight of WMATA Metrorail safety be removed from the Tri-State Oversight Committee and placed under federal jurisdiction. In its audits of WMATA, FTA had pre- viously found that the Tri-State Oversight Committee was incapable of providing oversight to WMATA’s rail system (NTSB 2016). In October 2015, the Secretary of Transportation directed FTA to assume temporary direct oversight of WMATA’s rail system. As of early 2018, FTA continues to perform this oversight responsibility in place of the Tri-State Oversight Committee, in its first significant role as a safety oversight organization. After investigating these and other incidents (including many in the commuter rail industry), NTSB has pointed to the absence of safety man-

BACKGROUND ON THE U.S. PUBLIC TRANSIT SECTOR 19 agement systems and to weak safety cultures within transit agencies gener- ally and to inadequate state and federal safety oversight. In many cases, NTSB has concluded that safety management systems could have improved safety cultures and prevented or reduced the severity of the incidents. These systems, including NTSB’s rationale for recommending them, are discussed further in the next chapter. REFERENCES Abbreviations APTA American Public Transportation Association BTS Bureau of Transportation Statistics FTA Federal Transit Administration NTD National Transit Database NTSB National Transportation Safety Board APTA. 2017. 2016 Public Transportation Fact Book. http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/ Documents/FactBook/2016-APTA-Fact-Book.pdf. BTS. 2017a. Table 1-40: U.S. Passenger-Miles. https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov. bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html. BTS. 2017b. Table 2-1: Transportation Fatalities by Mode. https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/ rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_01. html. BTS. 2017c. Table 2-2: Injured Persons by Transportation Mode. https://www.rita.dot. gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/ table_02_02.html. BTS. 2017d. Table 2-34: Transit Safety Data by Mode for All Reported Incidents. https://www. rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/ html/table_02_34.html. FTA. 2016. Rail Safety Statistics Report. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/ docs/Rail%20Safety%20Statistics%20Report.pdf. NTD. 2016. 2015 National Transit Summary and Trends. Federal Transit Administra- tion, Office of Budget and Policy. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/ docs/2015%20NTST.pdf. NTSB. 2015. Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvement: Make Mass Transit Safer. https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Documents/MWL_2015_Factsheet_06.pdf. NTSB. 2016. Improve Rail Transit Safety Oversight. https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/ mwl2-2016.aspx.

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In 2012, Congress gave the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) the authority to establish a new comprehensive framework to oversee the safety of the country’s public transit systems. As part of that framework, state and local transit agencies are required to engage in safety planning. In the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015, Congress asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to evaluate and provide recommendations on whether it is in the public interest for transit agencies to be allowed to withhold from civil litigation all records developed in compliance with this new federal safety planning requirement.

TRB Special Report 326: Admissibility and Public Availability of Transit Safety Planning Records considers the arguments favoring and opposing evidentiary protections for safety planning records and the rationale for Congressional decisions to grant such protections in other transportation modes. The report examines factors that Congress must consider when deciding where the public interest balance lies. They include a desire for transit agencies to engage in high-quality safety planning without fear of the planning records being used against them in court and the preservation of a tort system that deters unsafe conditions and allows injured parties to be justly compensated. Recommendations to Congress and FTA are offered with these and other important factors in mind.

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