NTN START Transit cheat sheet

Safety Management Systems (SMS) rest on four pillars: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion.

Risk is scored as likelihood × severity; hazards rated unacceptable require mitigation before the operation continues.

A near miss is an unplanned event with no injury or damage; it is reportable because it signals a latent hazard.

Emergency action plans follow the sequence: detect, notify, evacuate or shelter, account for people, and recover service.

Blame-free reporting protects the reporter so that the safety data stream stays complete; willful violations remain subject to discipline.

Personal protective equipment does not replace an engineering control; the hierarchy runs elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative, then PPE.

Emergency exercises are documented with participants, scenario, objectives, gaps found, and corrective actions with owners and dates.

Transit operators must report certain accidents and incidents to the state safety oversight body within the timeframe set by 49 CFR Part 674.

Vehicle hours and vehicle miles are the base units; service consumed equals scheduled trips multiplied by trip length.

On-time performance = (trips within the window ÷ total trips) × 100; a common window is 1 minute early to 5 minutes late.

Headway is the time between vehicles; frequency = 60 ÷ headway in minutes. Doubling frequency halves the wait for random arrivals.

Average wait for randomly arriving riders approximates half the headway; clock-face schedules reduce perceived wait.

Recovery time is added at terminals to absorb delay; insufficient recovery cascades lateness down the route.

Block and run-cut design pairs vehicle blocks with operator work pieces; a run-cut that violates spread time or break rules is infeasible.

Service change cycles (often 3-4 per year) drive pick selection, operator bidding, and public timetable publication.

Deadhead and pull-in/pull-out mileage is non-revenue but still consumes fuel, labor, and maintenance budget.

Preventive maintenance intervals are set by mileage or time, whichever comes first; the shorter interval governs.

A vehicle out of service for a safety defect is tagged and locked out until the defect is corrected and inspected.

Daily vehicle inspection reports (DVIR) are required for commercial vehicles; defects affecting safety must be repaired before dispatch.

Mean distance between failures (MDBF) = total miles ÷ number of road calls; rising MDBF indicates improving reliability.

Parts inventory uses min/max reorder points; stockout risk rises when lead time variability exceeds safety stock.

Brake, tire, and wheelchair-securement systems are high-consequence inspection items and are checked at every PM cycle.

Warranty recovery tracks parts and labor reimbursed by the manufacturer; unclaimed warranty is a direct cost leak.

Fluid analysis and tire wear trends are condition-based signals used to shift from fixed-interval to predictive maintenance.

Service failure recovery follows: acknowledge, apologize, resolve, and follow up; speed of response predicts satisfaction more than the size of compensation.

Complaint categories are typically operator behavior, on-time performance, cleanliness, safety, and information accuracy.

ADA requires equivalent service for riders with disabilities, including announcements, securement, and reasonable modification of policy.

Title VI requires meaningful access for limited-English-proficient riders; language access plans identify translation thresholds.

First-call resolution rate and average handle time are paired metrics; optimizing one alone can degrade the other.

Transit ambassadorship includes wayfinding, real-time arrival information, and staff presence at major transfer points.

De-escalation relies on calm tone, space, and offering choices; physical intervention is a last resort under policy.

Customer feedback loops close when the rider is told what changed; unresolved complaints are tracked to root cause.

49 CFR Part 674 requires a state safety oversight agency for rail transit and an agency safety plan.

49 CFR Part 655 covers drug and alcohol testing: pre-employment, random, reasonable suspicion, post-accident, return-to-duty, and follow-up.

Random testing rates are set annually by FTA; safety-sensitive employees are pooled by category.

Title VI and environmental justice review examines disproportionate impacts on low-income and minority populations.

Buy America rules require domestic content and final assembly in the United States for federally funded rolling stock.

Records retention schedules specify how long inspection, training, and testing records are kept; destruction before the retention date is a compliance finding.

Procurement above the simplified acquisition threshold requires full and open competition unless a documented exception applies.

Collective bargaining agreements govern discipline, seniority, and scheduling; policy changes affecting working conditions may require bargaining.

Progressive discipline escalates from coaching to written warning to suspension to termination, with documentation at each step.

Just-cause discipline requires notice of the rule, a consistent investigation, proof, equal treatment, and a penalty proportionate to the offense.

Absenteeism is managed with an attendance policy using occurrence-based or no-fault point systems tied to the bargaining agreement.

Span of control for frontline transit supervision typically runs about 8-15 operators per supervisor depending on geography and mode.

Training records must show competency validation, not just attendance; recertification dates are tracked for safety-sensitive roles.

Workforce planning compares retirements and attrition to hiring pipeline capacity; operator training takes weeks and constrains service growth.

Performance conversations use specific observable behavior and measurable outcomes rather than personality judgments.

Succession planning identifies critical roles and builds bench depth through cross-training and documented knowledge transfer.

Automatic vehicle location (AVL) feeds computer-aided dispatch and real-time passenger information; GPS drift must be filtered against route geometry.

APC (automatic passenger counter) data estimates boardings and alightings; validation against manual counts sets the correction factor.

Farebox recovery ratio = fare revenue ÷ operating cost; it is a coverage measure, not a profitability measure.

Cost per revenue hour and cost per passenger trip are the standard efficiency and effectiveness indicators.

GTFS and GTFS-Realtime are the open data standards for schedules and vehicle positions used by trip planners.

Predictive arrival algorithms blend schedule adherence, historical travel time, and live vehicle position.

Data quality checks include completeness, timeliness, accuracy, and consistency; bad data propagates into every downstream report.

Cybersecurity for operational technology separates IT and OT networks and applies patch management to vehicle and signal systems.

Tailpipe emissions per passenger mile fall as ridership per vehicle rises; load factor is the key lever.

Battery-electric buses reduce local pollutants but shift emissions to the grid; well-to-wheel accounting captures the full picture.

State of charge, route grade, HVAC load, and temperature determine achievable range; winter range loss is significant.

Charging strategy choices include depot overnight charging, opportunity charging en route, and in-motion charging.

Transit-oriented development concentrates housing and jobs near stations to raise ridership and reduce vehicle miles traveled.

Environmental justice screening identifies communities bearing disproportionate pollution burden from depots and corridors.

Fleet transition plans sequence depot charging infrastructure, utility interconnection, and workforce retraining.

Idling reduction, regenerative braking, and low-rolling-resistance tires are low-cost efficiency measures with measurable fuel savings.