[Federal Register: November 21, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 224)]
[Notices]
[Page 65636-65638]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr21no07-112]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Transit Administration
[Docket No: FTA-2007-0013]
National Transit Database: Amendments to Safety & Security
Reporting Manual
AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration (FTA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice of Availability of Proposed Amendments to the 2008
National Transit Database Safety & Security Reporting Manual.
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SUMMARY: This notice provides interested parties with the opportunity
to comment on changes to the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA)
2008 National Transit Database (NTD) Safety & Security Reporting Manual
(Safety & Security Manual). Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 5335, FTA requires
those transit agencies that are reporting to the NTD from urbanized
areas to provide reports within 30 days of a major safety or security
incident, and to provide a monthly report on minor safety and security
incidents. In an ongoing effort to improve the NTD reporting system,
and to be responsive to the needs of NTD data users and of the transit
agencies reporting to the NTD, FTA annually refines and clarifies the
Safety & Security Module reporting requirements through revisions to
the Safety & Security Manual.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before December 21, 2007. FTA
will consider comments filed after this date to the extent practicable.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments [identified by DOT Docket ID Number
FTA-2007-0013] at the Federal eRulemaking Portal at: http://www.regulations.gov.
Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Fax: 202-493-2251.
Mail: Docket Management Facility: U.S. Department of
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., West Building Ground
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140,
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday
through Friday, except Federal holidays.
Instructions: When submitting comments you must use docket number
FTA-2007-0013. This will ensure that your comment is placed in the
correct docket. If you submit comments by mail, you should submit two
copies and include the above docket number. Note that all comments
received will be posted, without change, to http://www.regulations.gov
including any personal identifying information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For program issues, John D. Giorgis,
Office of Budget and Policy, (202) 366-5430 (telephone); (202) 366-7989
(fax); or john.giorgis@dot.gov (e-mail). For legal issues, Richard
Wong, Office of the Chief Counsel, (202) 366-0675 (telephone); (202)
366-3809 (fax); or richard.wong@dot.gov (e-mail).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The National Transit Database (NTD) is the Federal Transit
Administration's (FTA's) primary database for statistics on the transit
industry. Congress established the NTD to ``help meet the needs of * *
* the public for information on which to base public transportation
service planning * * *'' (49 U.S.C 5335).
Currently, over 650 transit agencies in urbanized areas report to
the NTD through an Internet-based reporting system. Since 2002, the NTD
has included an expanded Safety & Security Module in order to meet the
increased public interest in transit safety and security data. Data
from the Safety & Security NTD Module are used by FTA's Office of
Safety and Security, the Department of Homeland Security, the National
Transportation Safety Board, and in the biennial Conditions and
Performance Report to Congress. NTD reporters are required to submit a
report on major incidents to the Safety & Security Module within 30
days of the
[[Page 65637]]
incident, and to submit a monthly summary report of minor incidents
within 30 days of the end of the month. FTA is not proposing to change
these requirements.
In an ongoing effort to improve the NTD reporting system, and to be
responsive to the needs of NTD data users and of the transit agencies
reporting to the NTD, FTA annually refines and clarifies the Safety &
Security Module reporting requirements through revisions to the Safety
& Security Manual. This notice provides interested parties with the
opportunity to comment on changes to the 2008 Safety & Security Manual.
For purposes of comparison, the 2007 Safety & Security Manual can be
reviewed on the NTD Web site, http://www.ntdprogram.gov.
II. Proposed Changes in the 2008 Safety & Security Manual
Format Changes
FTA is overhauling the format of the NTD Safety & Security Module
by instituting an interactive approach for major incident reporting.
Instead of completing a static form, reporters will instead receive
questions on an interactive basis, based on responses provided to the
initial questions. This will greatly reduce reporting burden, by only
providing reporters with questions relevant to the major incident
reported. It will also reduce the number of validation errors, as
reporters will be less likely to miss questions relevant to the major
incident being reported, and so leave them blank.
The ``Non-Major Incident'' form has been renamed the ``Security
Summary Report Form'' to better reflect the data collected. The form
has also been redesigned for conciseness and to reduce reporting
burden.
Eliminated Data Elements
FTA proposes dropping the requirement to provide the latitude and
longitude of major incidents, except for ferryboat incidents, where
such coordinates will still be required. FTA has found that latitude
and longitude were inconsistently reported in the past, and believes
that a verbal description of the incident location will provide the
needed information for major incidents occurring on modes other than
ferryboat.
FTA proposes dropping the requirement to provide the time zone in
which the incident occurred. FTA notes that the time zone of the
incident can be determined from the incident location in almost all
cases.
Major Incident Threshold
FTA proposes to greatly simplify the threshold requirements for
reporting a major incident. A major incident will now consist of any
occurrence exceeding one of the following three thresholds:
One or more fatalities;
One or more reportable injuries (involving immediate
medical transportation away from the scene); or
Total property damage in excess of $25,000.
Previously, the property damage threshold was $7,500 for certain
types of collisions. The increased threshold is established to decrease
reporting burden, and to match the threshold used by FTA's State Safety
Oversight Program.
Also, the previous threshold for injuries was one or more injuries
for occurrences involving rail transit, on a rail right-of-way, or at a
grade crossing, but the threshold was two or more injuries for all
other occurrences. Occurrences with only one injury, but not meeting
the threshold for a major incident, were reported on the monthly minor
incident summary report form. FTA is establishing a threshold of one
reportable injury for all occurrences, as it will be much simpler for
reporters to understand, and in order to support the streamlining of
the monthly minor incident summary form.
In addition, the following types of incidents will always
constitute a major incident, without regard to the preceding
thresholds:
A mainline derailment;
A fire requiring suppression; and
A hazardous material spill posing an immediate threat to
life, health, or the environment.
Previously, all mainline derailments were considered to be major
incidents, and the new definitions continue to reflect this. FTA is now
including fires and hazardous material spills as major incidents, but
is only requiring limited information on the location and cause of the
incident. Thus, the reporting burden will not be substantially
increased for those fires and hazardous material spills that were
previously reported as minor incidents.
FTA previously also required a major incident report for
``evacuations due to life safety reasons.'' FTA's experience with
Safety & Security reporting, however, has indicated that ``evacuations
due to life safety reasons'' always occur in conjunction with some
other type of incident. As such, FTA has removed this ``evacuations due
to life safety reasons'' as a threshold criterion. However, FTA still
requires transit agencies to report ``evacuations due to life safety
reasons'' whenever such an evacuation occurs in conjunction with
another incident.
Additionally, FTA has eliminated the requirement for reporters to
distinguish between the ``primary occurrence'' and the ``secondary
occurrence'' for a major incident. Instead, reporters will simply
report all data for an incident, without having to make a judgment as
to what aspects of the incident were ``primary'' or ``secondary.'' This
was done to reduce the reporting burden.
Definition of Fatalities
FTA will now consider suicides to be a fatality. This is done to
reduce the substantial confusion caused by excluding suicides from the
definition of ``fatalities.'' Additionally, research has indicated that
many safety practices can reduce the number of suicides, and as such,
FTA finds it prudent to include suicides in overall safety statistics.
Certification
FTA has added a standard form for the annual Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) certification of data reported to the Safety & Security
Module. This is done to reduce reporting burden on CEOs, and to provide
a convenient summary of the key safety and security data elements for
the CEO for review. This will also help the reporting transit agency
identify any unintended errors or omissions from their Safety &
Security Module submission.
``Acts of God''
At the request of several reporting transit agencies, FTA has added
``Acts of God'' as a causal factor of an occurrence producing
fatalities, injuries, or more than $25,000 in property damage.
Lighting Conditions
For reporting on collisions, FTA is requesting transit agencies to
report on the ``lighting conditions'' of the collision, in particular,
if there was ``light in the eyes'' of the operator of either the
transit vehicle or the other vehicle involved in the collision.
Other Changes
The NTD system now automatically requires the Safety & Security
Configuration Form (the S&S-30 Form) to be completed prior to
completing the first monthly report. Previously, reporters could
provide monthly incident data without completing this Form. This
automatic control is instituted to reduce the validation burden, as
reporters will now receive an automatic notice if they attempt to
[[Page 65638]]
provide incident data without having completed the S&S-30 Form.
Also, FTA has modified the available answers to many of the
questions from the old Safety & Security forms to reduce unneeded
answers, and to fill in gaps where the previously provided answers did
not account for all possible reporting situations. These changes are
non-substantive in nature, as they do not add any additional reporting
requirements, but may be found in the full 2008 Safety & Security
Reporting Manual, available on the NTD Web site at http://www.ntdprogram.gov
.
Issued in Washington, DC, this 15th day of November, 2007.
James S. Simpson,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. E7-22768 Filed 11-20-07; 8:45 am]
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