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PTASP Technical Assistance Forum

In light of the extraordinary challenges presented by the COVID-19 public health emergency, on December 11, 2020 FTA issued a second Notice of Enforcement Discretion for the Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) regulation (49 CFR Part 673). FTA will refrain from taking enforcement action until July 21, 2021 for recipients and subrecipients unable to certify compliance with the PTASP regulation. Please visit FTA’s COVID-19 FAQs page for more information about the Notice.


This forum offers peer-to-peer sharing of effective practices to support you in developing an Agency Safety Plan and implementing a Safety Management System.  It also provides an opportunity for you to ask questions and request and share resources with the transit community.

How it works:
  • Post a question, comment, or idea, or offer or request a resource.
  • Check out questions, comments, or ideas others have suggested and vote on your favorites.
  • Please include one question, comment, or suggestion per post to help us keep the forum organized.
Thanks for joining our community and working to support PTASP implementation.

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81 results found

  1. Safety Assurance Question

    What are other agencies doing for the Safety Assurance portion of the PTASP? This is the area that is the most unclear as to the requirements after reading the resources posted online. Thanks

    2 votes

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    Gathering feedback  ·  1 comment  ·  Safety Assurance  ·  Admin →
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  2. Key Staff SMS Roles and Responsibilities

    What SMS roles and responsibilities are you assigning to key staff in your ASP?

    2 votes

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    Gathering feedback  ·  0 comments  ·  Safety Management Policy  ·  Admin →
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  3. Does this section of the PTASP need to list safey training programs or detailed information on each safety training program?

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  Safety Promotion  ·  Admin →
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  4. Chief Safety Officer

    Some transit agencies do not have a designated safety department. Who will serve as the Chief Safety Officer or SMS Executive in your agency?

    1 vote

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    Gathering feedback  ·  0 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  5. Safety Performance Measures

    The PTASP requires agencies to provide four safety performance measures to FTA. One of the measures is safety events. What does FTA considerer a safety event? And should agencies also add injuries and fatalities to this figure since they are events that occur within the operating system.

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  6. I am interested in knowing what data systems are being used at transit agencies to track and risk rank incidents and accidents?

    The PTASP requires assessing risks and having good data our existing systems could be improved. Would like to know what solutions others are using. considik@trimet.org

    1 vote

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    Gathering feedback  ·  0 comments  ·  Safety Performance Targets  ·  Admin →
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  7. What system reliability performance measures are required for rail transit agencies?

    The National Public Transportation Safety Plan only mentions vehicles when describing the system reliability performance measure. Are transit agencies only required to include vehicle reliability in their system reliability performance measure?

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  Safety Performance Targets  ·  Admin →
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  8. SMS/ASP Gap Analysis Checklists

    In 2015, “FTA piloted its new SMS gap analysis tool and provided training to apprise [WMATA] executive, safety, and technical management personnel of SMS concepts and requirements.”
    The 2015 SMS gap analysis appears to have overlapping checklist items compared to the latest FTA ASP checklist published in August 2019. The assessment scales are also different - understandably so - given the 2015 checklist was meant for what appears to be an effort to assess WMATA’s SMS implementation “maturity” while the 2019 checklist appears to be more of a documentation effort, using a simplified assessment scale.
    Does FTA consider the checklist…

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  2 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  9. Do we use TrAMS to certify that we have a final compliant PTASP on/before 7/20/20?

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  10. Template

    This seems like an obvious question but I've looked and can't seem to find the answer. Is there a template that is able to be filled out via my computer? As in, not printed and then written in?

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  2 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  11. Small Transit Agency Opt-Out Letter Examples

    If your small agency has opted to develop your own agency safety plan, would you mind sharing a copy of your opt-out letter to your state department of transportation?

    2 votes

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    Gathering feedback  ·  0 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  12. ASP Development Milestones

    Does your agency have milestones for the development of your Agency Safety Plans (ASP) by the July 20, 2020 compliance deadline? If so, what ASP milestones has your transit agency established?

    2 votes

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    Gathering feedback  ·  2 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  13. What happens if we send 2-hour notifications to FTA in excess of the requirements?

    Our SSOA requires 2-hour notification for incidents as well as accidents. This requires our Train Dispatchers to determine who to notify depending on what happened and increases the possibility that erroneous 2-hour notifications will be sent to FTA. Will FTA simply ignore notification that don't meet a threshold or will there be other consequences?

    2 votes

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  other/none  ·  Admin →
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  14. The FTA's ASP Review Checklist (MS Excel version), states that FTA has created a condensed "word version". Where can I find this??

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  15. Terminology confusion

    Can you please clarify the difference between PTASP, ASP, and SMS?

    4 votes

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    responded  ·  3 comments  ·  other/none  ·  Admin →
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  16. What is the definition of a close call?

    What is the definition of a close call for a bus-only system?

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  3 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  17. My agency is a small provider and I want to know we are responsible for creating a PTASP or if our State DOT is responsible for doing it.

    1 vote

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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  18. Is there a set list of training requirements for an individual to be considered qualified to serve as the CSO?

    2 votes

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  Safety Management Policy  ·  Admin →
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  19. PTASP Requirements

    The PTASP has 4 requirements. SMS, Safety Performance Targets, Employee Reporting Program and Comprehensive Training Program. Where would the SRM fall under?

    2 votes

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    responded  ·  1 comment  ·  Safety Risk Management  ·  Admin →
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  20. Welcome to the FTA’s PTASP Technical Assistance Forum!

    Welcome and thank you for accessing the FTA’s PTASP Technical Assistance Forum!

    To get the discussion started, FTA would like to know if there are any additional resources that would help your agency in developing its Agency Safety Plan? Please post your comments below!

    6 votes

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    Gathering feedback  ·  6 comments  ·  PTASP Development  ·  Admin →
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