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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.

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  • 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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26 results found

  1. Are transit agencies required to recertify our ASP in TrAMS each year after it receives Board Approval

    Are transit agencies required to recertify our ASP in TrAMS each year after it receives Board Approval

    2 votes

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    responded  ·  3 comments  ·  Certification  ·  Admin →
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  2. 5 votes

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    responded  ·  4 comments  ·  Certification  ·  Admin →
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  3. Safety Performance Target Question

    On February 4th, FTA hosted a webinar related to Safety Performance Targets. In the first couple of slides of the presentation, the presenter and the slide stated the fatality performance measure excludes suicides, trespassers, and natural causes. That statement is in conflict with the National Public Transportation Safety Plan footnote 8 which states, “The thresholds for "reportable" fatalities, injuries, and events are defined in the NTD Safety and Security Reporting Manual.”
    In the NTD Safety and Security Reporting Manual, there is no exclusion to the fatality definition as stated in this webinar. Please advise if we should listen to the…

    3 votes

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  4. Bus Contractor's Existing SSPP?

    Question: Our agency contracts our bus and paratransit service operations and maintenance to a contractor, and that contractor has an existing System Safety Program Plan (SSPP). Since our agency is the recipient of the FTA funds (not the contractor), can the contractor keep their existing SSPP, and can our new ASP cite/reference sections of the contractor's SSPP?

    1 vote

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  5. Agency Contractors

    Question - Does the number of vehicles that a contractor uses to provide service affect the number of vehicles in service during peak hours and determine whether you are considered a small or large provider? Should the contractor vehicles be counted with the vehicles that your agency directly operates?

    1 vote

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  6. Sub-contractors in ASP?

    If fixed route and paratransit is provided by a contracted entity, does ASP also need to address sub-contracted companies such as security, janitorial, visiting personnel, etc. If so, do they need a separate section in the ASP?

    1 vote

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  7. Describing the Modes of Transit

    Should NTD terms be used to describe the Modes of Service in the following sections: Safety Performance Targets ; Transit Agency Information? Or is Paratransit and Fixed Bus acceptable like in the sample plan? Might be simple to many but I need clarification, help?

    1 vote

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  8. MPO?

    I am working on the portion where it asks to describe the coordination with the State and MPO the selection of the safety performance targets. We are a large bus transit agency. Who would the MPO be? We report data to the NTD. Would they be our MPO?

    1 vote

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  9. Vanpool clarification/assistance

    It is my understanding that a vanpool operation that receives 5307 capital funding from the large urban provider is required to have a PTASP or participate in the large urban PTASP. What does that look like? Seems like it's overly burdensome to require a 3 staff agency with volunteer drivers to have something this extensive in place. Are there sample policies out there that are more simplified are more specific to a VP operation?

    2 votes

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  10. 1 vote

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  11. 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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  12. How to coordinate ASP and SSEPP

    How does FTA anticipate the ASP working together with the System Security and Emergency Preparedness Program Plan (SSEPP)? Can we integrate the SSEPP into the ASP, essentially eliminating it as a document? Alternatively, can we separate safety from security functions and keep two distinct documents?

    1 vote

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  13. 1 vote

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  14. 1 vote

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  15. 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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  16. 4 votes

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  17. 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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  18. 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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  19. 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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  20. 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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