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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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81 results found

  1. 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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  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. 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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  5. 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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  6. 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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  7. Contractor Training

    Will your agency require SMS training for contractors? If so, what will that training address?

    2 votes

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  8. 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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  9. 1 vote

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  10. Safety Training

    What kind of safety training courses are you requiring for personnel (including contractors) considered directly responsible for safety?

    2 votes

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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. 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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  13. 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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  14. Monitoring Safety Risk Mitigations

    How will your agency monitor safety risk mitigations?

    2 votes

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  15. 1 vote

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  16. Hazard Identification

    Which activities and tools are you using for hazard identification? Who at your agency is responsible for this safety risk management step?

    2 votes

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  17. 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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  18. 1 vote

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  19. 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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  20. 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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