Every day, transit Operators face myriad challenges: pedestrians who are watching their phones instead of the road; traffic complications caused by weather, congestion, or construction; and distractions from riders with special needs or who might be belligerent or downright combative. All of these factors compete for the Operator’s attention, contributing to vehicle collisions, pedestrian injuries, and safety risks to riders and drivers.

The federal government is taking more aggressive action to reduce bus/pedestrian collisions and improve transit Operator safety.

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included language requiring transit agencies receiving federal funds to take measures that would improve public and worker safety, especially when it comes to interpersonal conflict or issues with unruly riders. This law includes a Public Transportation Safety Plans (PTSP) regulation, which seeks to expand de-escalation training and address safety risks, including assaults on transit workers.

The PTSP regulations require transit agencies to build a comprehensive safety training program for all transit Operators and transit workers directly responsible for safety. These provisions include:

1. De-escalation training
2. Risk identification and skill training for reporting
3. Refresher training for experienced operators
4. Initial Training for new hires

The PTSP regulation at § 673.29(a)(2) also requires each large urbanized area provider to include maintenance transit workers in its comprehensive safety training program.

Incorporating Federal Standards into Existing Training Programs

Building new training components into your training program can pose challenges to transit agencies. This is especially the case when training Operators to manage difficult customer interactions while driving. Even on a closed course, it’s clearly impractical and dangerous to purposefully distract a driver behind the wheel of a 43,000-pound vehicle. However, high-fidelity simulation-based training can address these concerns, providing complex, economical, and safe on-demand training.

FAAC’s Transit Response Situational Simulator can make your bus driving simulator into an efficient, effective all-in-one training solution for both standard daily skills (right-turn clearance, pulling into stops, etc.) and low-frequency/high-impact events that can lead to collisions, injuries, property damage, vehicle evacuations, etc. (extreme weather, vehicle disablements, violence targeting a driver, etc.).

Transit Response is a branching, scenario-based interaction simulator that prepares workers with the knowledge and skills to address the full range of possible passenger interactions and on-bus emergencies. Transit Response can be added to any FAAC MB 2000 or Paratransit simulators. With Transit Response, that simulator can incorporate customer interaction scenarios into your driving training program, including de-escalation, situational awareness, and more.

Metro Detroit Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) is one such agency that has successfully integrated Transit Response into its training program solution. This agency has improved its focus on support for Operators and preparing them for de-escalating passenger interactions. SMART Training and Development Coordinator Lafayette Kelly explained, “We hope that, with the use of these different [branching simulation] scenarios, [that will] give [drivers]…a kind of tool belt they can use: ‘Oh, I saw this before—when I see a person do this, I should say this.’”

Bring Your Training Program Up to Speed with FAAC Simulation Solutions

As federal workforce development expectations expand, so must your training. FAAC has a track record of supporting transit agencies as they grow and advance their training. Twenty-five years ago, FAAC developed the world’s first immersive bus transit training simulator (a development that APTA named one of the top 100 public transit safety improvements in the last 150 years). Today, we continue to embrace a “customer for life” philosophy founded on understanding agencies’ needs and policies and working closely with their teams to develop and deliver the appropriate training solution.