CHAPTER 3
Decision-Making Guidance

At the national level, regulations and guidance exist to help transit agencies address safety and security. This chapter describes the regulations and guidance provided by the BIL (also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), FTA, and APTA.

BIL

The BIL, enacted in November 2021, changed some requirements of the Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) in an effort to reduce the number, rate, and risk of assaults on transit workers. Transit agencies that receive Urbanized Area Formula program funds (serving urbanized areas with populations of 200,000 or more) are now required by the FTA to do the following (28):

• Establish a safety committee that includes both frontline employee and management representatives, tasked with identifying risk, recommending safety measures, and evaluating the effectiveness of strategies aimed at mitigating the consequences found through the agenciesʼ safety risk assessment.
• Create and integrate a risk reduction program into the agencyʼs safety plan, with the goal of enhancing safety in transit operations by lowering the frequency and severity of accidents, injuries, and assaults on transit workers, using data submitted to the NTD.
• Establish safety performance goals based on a 3-year rolling average of NTD-submitted data and dedicate at least 0.75 percent of Urbanized Area Formula program funds toward initiatives that support transit safety improvement.
• Ensure that maintenance staff meet current safety training standards and that all relevant personnel, including those in safety, operations, and maintenance roles, receive training in de-escalation.

Along with these requirements, the FTA requires that transit agencies provide data relating to physical and nonphysical assaults on transit workers for inclusion in the NTD, effective April 2023. The Personal Security Event Form includes the following three options if the event type is assault or homicide:

1. Assault/homicide against operator
2. Assault/homicide against other transit worker (transit police, station agent)
3. Assault/homicide not against transit worker (passengers, patrons)

The reportable event must occur on transit right-of-way or infrastructure, occur at a transit revenue or maintenance facility, occur during a transit-related maintenance activity, or involve a transit revenue vehicle. Agencies must exclude incidents occurring at bus stops or shelters that are not located on transit-owned property, unless the incident involves boarding or exiting a transit vehicle; or the event occurs off transit property but results in individuals coming to rest on transit property.

FTA

The FTA plays a pivotal role in addressing assaults on transit workers by establishing regulatory frameworks, issuing directives, and providing guidance and resources to enhance safety in transit environments. In September 2024, the FTA issued General Directive 24-1, requiring actions to protect the nationʼs frontline transit workers from assaults (29). As described in the directive, transit agencies subject to the FTAʼs PTASP regulation must conduct a safety risk assessment, identify safety risk mitigations or strategies, and describe how they are assessing, mitigating, and monitoring the safety risk associated with assaults on transit workers. Agencies in urbanized areas with populations over 200,000 must engage joint labor–management safety committees to develop these strategies collaboratively.

The FTA also provided resources to assist transit agencies in complying with this directive, including technical assistance on hazard identification related to worker assaults, guidance on safety risk assessment processes, and best practices for developing mitigation strategies. Additionally, the FTA conducted webinars to support agencies in fulfilling the directiveʼs requirements and in utilizing the new Safety Measurement System reporting tool.

Following General Directive 24-1, the FTA conducted an initial analysis of how transit agencies responded to the directive to assess, mitigate, and monitor the safety risks associated with assaults on transit workers (30). The analysis results revealed that agencies employed varying mitigation strategies. De-escalation training as well as video and audio surveillance emerged as the two most widely implemented mitigation strategies across transit agencies. De-escalation training aimed to equip transit workers with the skills to manage and diffuse potentially volatile situations, while video and audio surveillance served as both a deterrent and a tool for evidence collection. Another notable strategy involved posting signage aimed at riders, which alerted them to the penalties for assaulting transit workers and the presence of surveillance systems.

Among the strategies evaluated, video and audio surveillance was reported as the most effective in reducing assaults on transit workers. Automatic vehicle location technology and operator protective barriers also ranked highly in effectiveness, offering additional layers of safety and security (31).

APTA

APTA has been actively involved in initiatives to prevent and mitigate assaults on transit workers. In collaboration with the FTA, APTA has facilitated the dissemination of safety directives and best practices across the transit industry. Additionally, APTA has developed standards and recommended practices to assist transit agencies in addressing transit assaults, focusing on environmental design, crowd management, staff training, and technology use. Furthermore, APTA hosts webinars and conference sessions on the topic, providing valuable presentations for review.