[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CURBSIDE OPERATORS: BUS SAFETY AND ADA REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
=======================================================================
(109-52)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HIGHWAYS, TRANSIT AND PIPELINES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 2, 2006
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
____
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30-298 WASHINGTON : 2006
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice- JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
Chair NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Columbia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JERROLD NADLER, New York
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan CORRINE BROWN, Florida
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan BOB FILNER, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
SUE W. KELLY, New York JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana California
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
JERRY MORAN, Kansas ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
GARY G. MILLER, California BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JIM MATHESON, Utah
SAM GRAVES, Missouri MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota RICK LARSEN, Washington
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania JULIA CARSON, Indiana
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
JON C. PORTER, Nevada MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
TED POE, Texas ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN BARROW, Georgia
JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New York
LUIS G. FORTUNO, Puerto Rico
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr., Louisiana
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
(ii)
?
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS, TRANSIT AND PIPELINES
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Chairman
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
SUE W. KELLY, New York EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
JERRY MORAN, Kansas BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
GARY G. MILLER, California SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina JIM MATHESON, Utah
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina RICK LARSEN, Washington
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
SAM GRAVES, Missouri JULIA CARSON, Indiana
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington (Ex Officio)
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
DON YOUNG, Alaska
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
TESTIMONY
Page
Gillan, Jacqueline S., Vice President, Advocates for Highway and
Auto Safety.................................................... 23
Golden, Marilyn, Policy Analyst, Disability Rights Education and
Defense Fund................................................... 23
Hamilton, Bruce, President/Business Agent, Amalgamated Transit
Union Local 1700, AFL-CIO...................................... 23
Liang, Pei Lin, President, Fung Wah Bus Transportation, Inc..... 30
Pantuso, Peter J., President and CEO, American Bus Association.. 23
Sandberg, Annette, Administrator, Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration................................................. 4
Wang, David, Co-Owner and Manager, Eastern Travel, Inc.......... 30
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri................................. 37
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., of Maryland............................ 38
Porter, Hon. Jon, of Nevada...................................... 00
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Gillan, Jacqueline S............................................ 44
Golden, Marilyn................................................. 57
Hamilton, Bruce................................................. 66
Liang, Pei Lin.................................................. 79
Pantuso, Peter J................................................ 80
Sandberg, Annette............................................... 165
Wang, David..................................................... 171
CURBSIDE OPERATORS: BUS SAFETY AND ADA REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
----------
Thursday, March 2, 2006
House of Representatives, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee
on Highways, Transit and Pipelines, Washington,
D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m. in room
2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas E. Petri
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Mr. Petri. The Subcommittee will come to order.
I would like to welcome all of our members and witnesses to
today's hearing on Curbside Operators: Bus Safety and ADA
Regulatory Compliance. The purpose of today's hearing is to
learn more about the curbside operator industry and determine
if there are safety violations and Americans With Disabilities
Act, or ADA violations. If there are, we want to hear about the
extent of those violations and what can be done to bring these
carriers into compliance with the law.
Recently, there has been a lot of attention in the media
about curbside operators and whether they comply with Federal
law and regulations. For those who are not familiar with
curbside operators, they are full fare interstate buses that
pick up and drop off passengers on the street, rather than
traditional bus terminals. They are also referred to as
Chinatown buses, because they originally served the northeast
Asian communities by transporting restaurant workers from one
Chinatown to another city's Chinatown.
Curbside operators now have expanded beyond their original
routes and passenger and service the entire Eastern Seaboard
from Boston to Albany to Philadelphia to Richmond, Virginia.
They have also expanded their passenger base to include
professionals, students and tourists. Something that was
familiar to me as a Peace Corps volunteer over in Somalia,
where there were bus or other transportation operations at a
certain point, and whenever enough people lined up to fill up
the bus, they would take off. But this is not the typical
American approach.
In recent media reports, passengers of curbside operators
have questioned whether these buses are safe to transport
people. Bus fires along the interstates and horror stories of
buses breaking down on the side of the road, leaving passengers
stranded for hours, are rampant in the news and among the
traveling public. Passengers and other interstate users have
asked the Government to ensure that these buses are safe.
Unfortunately, they have not been given a straight answer as to
whether they are safe and comply with the law.
However, these curbside operators have peaked the
Government's interest enough to warrant a week-long safety
inspection crackdown in the northeast. In late October,
Federal, Sate and local authorities teamed up to inspect buses
in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and
Maryland. The Northeast Passenger Carrier Strike Force, as it
became known, performed over 400 safety inspections on buses
and uncovered over 500 safety related violations. As a result,
56 buses and 13 drivers were placed out of service.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration followed up
on the inspection sweep in December by performing compliance
reviews on 14 curbside operators. The Federal inspectors found
that 176 safety related violations and 11 of these 14 carriers
had violated the ADA.
Besides questioning the safety of this industry, the media
has reported blatant non-compliance with the ADA. In the winter
of 2004, a Boston couple attempted to board a curbside operator
with their seeing-eye dog, only to be turned away due to their
no animal policy. But when they agreed to leave the dog at
home, they were turned away anyway. The operator refused the
sale a second time because it claimed they could not take
responsibility for transporting a visually disabled person
without any visual aids like a seeing-eye dog.
The Attorney General of Massachusetts investigated the
situation and found sufficient evidence to file suit against
this curbside operator, claiming the company intentionally
ignored the State's disability access law.
Today we have three panels of witnesses. The first panel is
the Administrator from the agency that regulates interstate
buses, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or
FMCSA. On our second panel, we have representatives from groups
who have an interest in interstate bus activity. And finally,
we will hear from three operators whose operations seem to be
representative of the issues we are examining today.
We look forward to hearing the testimony from all of our
witnesses. Now I will yield to Mr. DeFazio for any opening
statement that he may wish to make.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this hearing.
I think it is very good that the Committee is exerting some
oversight over this subset of the industry and over how it is
being regulated and overseen by the Administration. First,
Administrator Sandberg, I understand this is your last week.
Thank you for your service.
We are concerned, at least Ranking Member Oberstar and I,
that as far as I know, there is still not a nominated
successor. That is an ongoing concern. Hopefully if any of the
minders, the political minders down there at DOT are listening
in, they will remind the Secretary that it would be, we think,
imperative that a permanent replacement soon be nominated.
I appreciate the fact that you did undertake last, I guess
it was last summer, the Northeast Passenger Carrier Strike
Force investigation. I think the results of that are quite
startling and I would only reflect, I am new in this position
on this subcommittee. But I have more expertise in aviation. If
we had had a sudden inspection over and above our regular
regulatory regime which uncovered anywhere near those numbers
of violations in serious ways, it would be reverberating still
throughout the industry and the press.
Just because we are dealing with people of lower incomes
and in a less high profile industry does not mean that we
should allow, with our regulatory role over interstate
commerce, these sorts of problems to continue to not be
addressed. Our staff has reviewed from the SAFESTAT program
your scoring. They found that 6 of the 25 major curbside folks
had problems and very poor scores, but only 3 were marked for
review. We would be very curious why the other three were not
and why we are not seeing more robust, ongoing monitoring.
Perhaps it reflects problems that are even bigger than curbside
buses that go to other areas of jurisdiction under your
department.
I think the Congress certainly has expressed its concern in
this area by the very robust increase in funding that we put
into the SAFETEA-LU bill. It is actually almost a 20 percent
increase over the last five years. So I think that you have
there certainly a vision and a strong indication by Congress
that we would like more ongoing inspections and scrutiny of all
aspects that fall under your division. Because it is not just
the people who are either on the buses or driving the trucks
who are at risk, but also the rest of the traveling public who
is being put at risk, should there be a major accident
involving defective vehicles or drivers who are not fully in
compliance with all the regulations for their license.
With that, I look forward to your testimony. Again, I thank
the Chairman. I think hopefully we are getting ahead of the
problem here. We are not going to have a tombstone mentality.
And we are going to prevent some tragedy from happening.
Mr. Petri. Are there any other opening statements? Mr.
Pascrell.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, for
bringing us together today on a discussion of our Nation's most
traveled transport system. According to the American Bus
Association, private buses transport almost three-quarters of a
billion passengers a year. That is more than Amtrak and all the
airlines put together.
Overall, it is the safest mode of travel on our Nation's
highways and currently the most affordable. However, I am
deeply troubled by some recent reports of safety violations by
some of the carriers. Low cost transportation options should be
available to consumers all along the corridor, but even if the
dollar amount is small, the actual price is safety. It is far
too high a cost.
I am concerned also to learn that some companies may be
denying disabled persons travel on their bus lines. In fact,
there is an article in the Washington Post today, very
troubling. Non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities
Act is a serious infraction and a violation of American civil
rights. I am hopeful that the Subcommittee will gain a more
complete understanding of the situation here today and look
forward to working with all the parties to ensure the safety
and security of all private bus line passengers.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Any other opening statements? If not, we will begin with
the first panel, Annette Sandberg, Administrator of the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration, United States Department
of Transportation.
Welcome. You know the drill and we look forward to your
summary statement.
TESTIMONY OF ANNETTE SANDBERG, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL MOTOR
CARRIER SAFETY ADMINISTRATION
Ms. Sandberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
DeFazio and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting
me to discuss the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's
oversight role of curbside bus operations.
Motorcoaches are one of the safest forms of commercial
transportation. According to our licensing and insurance data
base, approximately 3,900 interstate motorcoach companies
operate 35,000 motorcoaches in the United States. There are
approximately 120,000 motorcoach drivers who have commercial
drivers licenses with passenger endorsements.
For the previous ten calendar years, there has been a
yearly average of 22.4 motorcoach occupant fatalities. The
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has established a
National Motor Coach Safety program with emphasis on six areas.
One, increase the number of motorcoach compliance reviews,
which are the investigation of a company's safety practices.
Two, develop and implement a separate CR prioritization system
for motorcoach carriers. Three, establish formal motorcoach
inspection programs within all the States. Four, improve safety
data. Five, reduce motorcoach fires. And six, expedite safety
audits of new motorcoach carriers.
I would like to quickly outline each of these areas. One,
motorcoach company compliance reviews. Our agency has planned
an increase in the number of compliance reviews conducted on
motorcoach companies. In fiscal year 2005, FMCSA and our State
partners conducted 457 motorcoach compliance reviews,
surpassing our established goal of 375. Our fiscal year 2006
goal is 450, a 20 percent increase over our previous year's
goal. And we anticipate that we will surpass that goal as we
did in 2005.
Two, passenger carrier compliance review prioritization
system. Our agency chose to develop a separate system for
prioritizing motorcoach carriers for two reasons. One, the
availability of motorcoach safety data is more limited than
that of property carriers because of infrequent roadside safety
inspections and fewer compliance reviews. And two, the belief
that motorcoach companies should receive more program attention
and enforcement resources.
This approach aligns our selection criteria with the
National Transportation Safety Board recommendation that we
revise the SAFESTAT system to compare passenger carriers with
one another. FMCSA will implement the passenger carrier CR
prioritization system during this calendar year.
Three, motorcoach inspections. While all States conduct
motorcoach inspections, not every State has a formal motorcoach
inspection program. By way of memorandum, our agency will
require State agencies that receive MCSAP grant funds to revise
their commercial vehicle safety plans to include a bus
inspection program. FMCSA will conduct a meeting with our MCSAP
partners in early May to discuss this issue.
Four, improved safety data. Safety data are important to
our agency to employ our resources effectively and efficiently.
In the past three years, there have been significant
improvements in the timeliness and quality of our motorcoach
safety data, largely through a series of recent inspection and
compliance review strike forces. Having accurate and complete
data about the bus companies we regulate is vital for our
safety mission. Additionally, we are conducting a bus crash
causation study mandated by the Motor Carrier Safety
Improvement Act (MCSIA) to determine the reasons for and
factors contributing to serious bus crashes.
Five, motorcoach fires. Another important aspect of our
safety program relates to the problem of motorcoach fires.
Presently, our agency is taking action to address bus fires. To
this end, we have approached the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) about a coordinated data sharing
program between our two agencies to more quickly identify and
correct vehicle safety problems. We are working together with
NHTSA to identify the causes of these fires, and once they are
identified, our agencies will take appropriate action.
Six, new entrant passenger carriers. Of the 40,000 to
50,000 new carriers that enter interstate commerce each year,
several hundred of these are new entrant passenger carriers. We
have implemented a new policy that makes passenger carriers a
greater safety priority. New entrant passenger carriers are now
subject to an on-site safety audit within nine months of
beginning operations, instead of the usual 18 months for other
coach carriers.
Finally, we are working on a proposed rule to strengthen
new entrant program standards across the bus and truck
industries. In September of 1998, the Department of
Transportation amended its ADA regulations to require
accessible over-the-road bus service. The regulations ensure
accessible, timely over-the-road bus service for passengers
with disabilities, including wheelchair users. These
regulations apply to inter-city and fixed route bus operators
and to demand responsive or charter operators. Non-compliance
with the ADA regulations is an issue throughout the bus
industry. It is not limited to curbside bus companies.
Based on the hundreds of telephone calls we received from
bus companies about ADA regulations, we have found they
frequently do not understand the responsibility to provide
timely, accessible bus service to individuals with
disabilities. While the Department of Justice is the only
entity with the power to enforce violations of the ADA
regulations, the Department of Transportation has done much to
assist its efforts. In addition to reminding motorcoach
operators about their annual reporting requirements, we compile
data and submit the industry data to the Department of Justice,
as well as complaints.
Our safety partnership with the motorcoach industry is
vital toward making our highways safer. Each motorcoach
company's effort is needed to improve the safety of our highway
passenger transportation.
Mr. Chairman, during my tenure at FMCSA, I have worked hard
to accomplish the goal of increased safety for our Nation's
traveling public. I want to thank you for giving me the
opportunity to briefly outline some of the work we have done to
make this segment of transportation safer. I would be happy to
answer any questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much for your summary.
Mr. DeFazio, do you have questions?
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Sandberg, I appreciate the ongoing efforts. But given
the fairly dramatic increase in funding that we put forward in
SAFETEA-LU, could you just focus a little bit more on the new
initiatives, or how you are augmenting the ongoing safety
program? And in particular, obviously to the subject of the
hearing here, given the number of violations found and the
other issues that were raised by your scoring system.
Ms. Sandberg. Certainly. The first thing that we realized,
in order for us to identify unsafe motorcoach operators, we
have to have data in our data base. We have about 680,000
companies that we regulate nationwide. Of those 680,000 less
than 4,000 are motorcoach companies. So first we had to have
data that would help us identify, out of those hundreds of
thousands of companies, which ones we need to focus on, whether
it be truck companies or motorcoach companies.
Our data system is driven by roadside inspections, it is
driven by compliance reviews, it is driven by crash data and
other types of information that we receive. One of the problems
that we have is in SAFETEA-LU, there is a requirement that we
are no longer able to do roadside inspections of motor coach
operations. SAFETEA-LU prohibits us from doing that. We have to
either do it at origin or destination.
So what we are doing is now focusing our inspection efforts
at origin or destination sites. Some of that is working
together with our State partners to make sure that they have an
established plan and that they are actually doing motorcoach
inspections.
The other thing that we have done through our grant
operations is make sure that each State has bus ramps. Buses
are much more difficult to inspect than a truck, because it is
hard to crawl under them. So we provide the State agencies with
bus ramps, and they are able to purchase those bus ramps so
they can actually roll the bus up onto the ramps and get under
the bus to look for safety defects underneath. But again, the
inspections drive the overall data system. So by feeding the
system at the front end by doing more inspections, that will
help us better identify the unsafe bus operators at the back
end.
We don't have enough bus crashes annually, as I said, there
are about 22 fatalities that are attributed to motorcoach
operations each year, to really use crashes as the only
indicator. So by doing more inspections, that will help us
drive more compliance reviews. In addition to the inspections,
we have set these higher goals of doing compliance reviews on
more motorcoach operations than we had done in the past. Those
compliance reviews will also help derive additional data to
help us focus on unsafe operators.
And then the last thing is really working on companies that
we call, we basically label them as non-entrants. These are
companies that are actually doing business in interstate
commerce and they have never registered with us. So we are
working with our State partners to identify those companies
that actually should be registered as an interstate carrier,
get them registered and then get them into the system so that
we can begin collecting data on them to determine whether they
are safe or not.
Mr. DeFazio. As I said, last year, there were 39
fatalities, there was an increase. Just back to this issue
which I raised in my opening statement, we had found in your
previous, you apparently are now augmenting your data base, and
we will perhaps have more data. But even previously, when the
25 major curbside bus operators were reviewed in SAFESTAT, six
came up unsatisfactory. But only three were marked for review.
Why would someone who came up with an unsatisfactory score not
get a more comprehensive review?
Ms. Sandberg. If they are marked unsatisfactory, then
typically we have an enforcement action ongoing, and we will
review them eventually. But we might not have done a recent
compliance review on that company. There are a number of
reasons. I would have to know the specific companies. We would
be happy to, if we have the information, provide you with that
information.
Additionally, some may have gone out of business.
Mr. DeFazio. So the normal procedure would be that anyone
rated unsatisfactory, would with some sense of urgency--do you
have enough inspectors or people to physically do this? Is that
part of the problem?
Ms. Sandberg. We have about 700, close to 800 people
nationwide, in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
But that is augmented by over 11,000 State and local law
enforcement that the grant monies, the increases that you talk
about that were provided in SAFETEA-LU, that money goes to the
States to augment those additional resources for inspections,
compliance reviews and audits.
So we feel that given that volume we need to make sure each
State has an identified motorcoach program. One of the things
that we looked at last year when we saw the increase in
fatalities wa that we started asking what States had specific
motorcoach safety programs. Not many did. While they did some
inspections, they did not have an identified program.
So what we are doing through the commercial vehicle safety
plans is telling them, you have to have an identified program
on how you are going to target motorcoach operations in your
respective State. Some States are going to have a more robust
program. For example, I would say that the best State is New
Jersey right now. Because of the number of motorcoaches that
operate in that State, they already have an identified program.
So we are looking at how many motorcoach operations occur in
that State and looking at how robust the State's program needs
to be. That is the work that we are doing right now.
Mr. DeFazio. Is there a deadline for the States that don't
currently have programs?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes. We are meeting with our State partners
in May at a large meeting where we will talk about their MCSAP
grants. They will write their commercial vehicle safety plans
for this year over the summer, and those plans have to be
established by October.
Mr. DeFazio. And if it is not, is there some sort of
extension of Federal--
Ms. Sandberg. If it is not, we do not approve their plan
and we do not give them money. We will hold the money until
they have an approved plan.
Mr. DeFazio. So there are consequences. Again, I am just
concerned that we use the past fatality measure as, I mean,
yes, it shows some level of success, although the up spike is
of concern, and that is not an insignificant number of lives,
39 lives. So that is an ongoing concern.
But when you find log book problems or particularly drug
testing problems, it seems to me anecdotally it is often
fatigue that is found to be a factor in the interstate bus
drivers. And then obviously lack of drug testing would raise
tremendous concerns for people who are conducting passengers.
Are fines being levied on these actions?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes, they are, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. Are they substantial?
Ms. Sandberg. Some of the fines are substantial. In fact,
in a couple of enforcement actions that we took last year we
used our eminent hazard authority, which means that we can go
into a company and rather than give them time to correct the
problems, place them out of service immediately for eminent
hazard. We are using this authority more and more. And, more
specifically, on motorcoach companies because of the potential
that if they are operating unsafely they could do more damage
on the highway.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My
time has expired.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mrs. Schmidt?
Mrs. Schmidt. I have a question regarding the ADA
requirements. I think one of the arguments that is made by the
curbside operators is how costly it would be to have ADA
requirements on their buses. But it bothers me because from a
personal perspective, when I was elected and brought a group of
people up here, one of them was disabled. They were able to
raise him on the back end of the bus and get him seated in and
he was able to use the restroom, and had no problems.
Aren't there laws in place that require buses that are used
for commercial purpose to have ADA accessible facilities for
individuals, so that they can travel as freely as people that
don't have secondary issues?
Ms. Sandberg. The way that the ADA regulations work, that
the Department established, for large operations, and large
fixed route, would be more than $7.2 million in revenue a year.
They are required by October of this year to have 50 percent of
their fleet accessible, and by the year 2012 to have 100
percent of their fleet accessible, with the caveat that any
brand new buses that they buy or lease have to be accessible.
With regard to small fixed route, and that would be under
$7.2 million of revenue per year, there is not that specific
deadline. However, they have the same requirement that if they
buy any new buses or they lease any new buses, those buses have
to be accessible. In addition, they have a 48 hour notice
requirement, so that if somebody calls them and says, in 48
hours, I need to take your bus somewhere, they have to provide
an accessible bus.
The dilemma we have had, whether it is large fixed route or
small fixed route, is oftentimes they don't understand their
responsibility. Companies are supposed to report to the
Department of Transportation on whether they are meeting the
accessibility requirements. I can tell you that up to this
point, the reporting has been very poor across the industry.
Last year we only had 21 percent of the bus companies actually
file the required report. That is better than it was two years
ago when it was 6 percent. Right now we are sending out letters
annually saying you have to report.
The reporting is kind of the first step, because then that
helps us identify whether they are purchasing accessible buses
or not and whether they are meeting the mandates. Then we send
that information over to the Department of Justice. There are
laws that require that these buses be accessible, whether it is
the 48 hour notice requirement, or that they have purchased or
leased buses.
The way that the ADA is set up, though, the Department of
Justice has the primary responsibility for doing enforcement on
these cases. So what we do is when we discover either through a
complaint where somebody calls us and says, we tried to get on
a bus and they told us to call a larger fixed route carrier or
somebody else, we take those complaints, we try to gather
additional information and then give that to the Department of
Justice to take action. We have referred 11 complaints over to
the Department of Justice in the last 24 months.
As we proceed forward, and we are doing new entrant audits
where we go into a company early on, we will also look for ADA
compliance. If we discover that there is non-compliance, we
will send those cases over to the Department of Justice.
Mrs. Schmidt. Do you also follow up with the Department of
Justice to see what kind of action they have levied against
these individuals?
Ms. Sandberg. We ask. We do not always hear, because
usually they will say it is under investigation. I am really
sorry that my counterpart from the Department of Justice is not
here today. But they do not always tell us exactly where the
case is. They will just say it is in the works. That is all I
have heard.
Mrs. Schmidt. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me ask you this. You said that you are concerned about
the firms that operate on low economic margins, because the
first thing you said they do is they cut safety, is that right?
Ms. Sandberg. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. Do you have any sense of how profitable
curbside services are, and how their profitability compares to
the services, say, like a Greyhound?
Ms. Sandberg. We do not get that kind of financial data at
the Department of Transportation. I know some curbside
operators do very well. I think that there are some that are
going to be on a panel, too, after me. They may be able to tell
you. I do not know. I do not have that specific financial data.
Mr. Cummings. What percentage of curbside buses are
regularly inspected by FMCSA?
Ms. Sandberg. Well, for us to specifically inspect them, we
work with our State partners. For example, at the southern
border, we have hundreds of inspectors down there and we
regularly inspect all of those buses coming across from Mexico
into the United States. The border is really the only place
coach carriers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, has certified inspectors.
We do have some people that are safety investigators and
also inspectors that are spread out through the Country, but
usually there are only four or five to a State. So we will work
with the State agencies in that specific State and what we have
done most recently is the Northeast Corridor Task Force, where
a lot of these curbside bus operations have been working all
the way from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, well, we did not go quite that far, Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, D.C.
We worked with local agencies all throughout that area and
did hundreds of inspections and are encouraging them to
continue having an inspection emphasis, not just on curbside,
but on all motorcoach operations. Because we find that even
other motorcoach operations, whether it is tour or charter, or
even some of the large fixed routes, still have safety problems
that we need to address.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. As far as commercial bus operators, are
they required to post any of their safety ratings on their
buses?
Ms. Sandberg. No, they are not.
Mr. Cummings. And how many curbside services have you shut
down, any?
Ms. Sandberg. I do not have that number. I know we have
shut down a few. What they do is typically, when we start
enforcement action, they will go out of business. And we have
had this problem, where we start enforcement action, they go
out of business, they try to recreate themselves under a new
name and then we track them down again. So that is the more
likely scenario, whereas we are getting ready to shut them
down, then they go out of business.
Mr. Cummings. And just the last question, what would it
take, give me the scenario that it would take to get you to the
point of wanting to shut somebody down, shut a company down. In
other words--
Ms. Sandberg. Typically it is a flagrant violation of the
safety regulations. One of the things that we have found with
the curbside operators is that they are like a lot of small
operators that we see on the trucking industry side, where they
are simply not aware of all the safety regulations that they
are required to follow, whether it be the types of drivers that
they hire or that they do drug and alcohol testing.
One of the things that we have found when we identify these
carriers and tell them where they have deficiencies is that
they have been very quick to correct them. What it takes is
somebody that would go in and look, and let's say they do not
have a drug and alcohol testing program. And the carrier
continues to say, we are not going to have a drug and alcohol
testing program.
That leads us to believe that they are clearly violating
the safety regulations, they know what they are supposed to be
doing, and they are not doing it. Violations of this nature
will lead us to shut them down.
Mr. Cummings. How can we get in front of that, though? In
other words, it just sounds like a back door approach. You have
problems, and then we say, look, you are bad, but in the
process, the public safety is in jeopardy. It seems like we
need to be in advance of some of that. Are there things that
are being done to, because you know anybody will say ignorance
of the law. This just makes sense, particularly being ignorant
of the way your system works.
Ms. Sandberg. Right.
Mr. Cummings. It seems like we are almost, you are almost
inviting these violations. Are you following me?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes, and there is something specifically that
we are doing to address that. When I came into the agency three
years ago, we were just rolling out a rule called the New
Entrant Safety Assurance Process.
The disagreement that I had personally about the process,
was that it was all education focused and not enforcement
focus. What we did was we went into carriers that were just
operating in interstate commerce, and we would say, okay, let's
educate you on how you are supposed to be doing business. They
should have already known that.
To me there are significant violations that should
immediately shut a company down. So we are doing a new entrant
rulemaking process right now to change the system. And there
are going to be 11 violations that if a company has violated
these things, and they are fundamental to safety, drug and
alcohol testing, using drivers that are qualified, making sure
drivers follow hours of service, those kinds of things, those
will be in there. And if a company is not doing those, we will
shut the company down immediately.
I think that is one of the areas where we have clearly
needed to strengthen our process, so that these people couldn't
just continue to operate and pretend like they did not know
what they were doing.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Sodrel.
Mr. Sodrel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems like we have
two issues on the table here with the curbside operators. One
is ADA compliance, the other is safety compliance. ADA
compliance is important. But it is an inconvenience for
disabilities that are trying to travel. Failure to comply with
safety standards is life threatening.
I might say, in my other life, I used to be a coach
operator. So I have a little prior experience in the bus
business. We had a company in Indiana called Hammond Yellow
that was known not to be a particularly high level carrier and
was inspected several times and many of their vehicles were
placed out of service. But the company was not closed up until
they went off a ramp at I-70 in Indianapolis and killed two
people, a coach of a high school athletic team and his
daughter.
So a previous question that was asked, it is better to get
ahead of the curve than behind the curve. And it is serious,
any time you close a business down or close their operations
down, it is taking a livelihood away from someone who owns and
operates the buses and the people that work there. So it is
serious, I do not suggest that we take that lightly.
On the other hand, there have been times where the system
was a little slow to react. I do not know how these curbside
folks, with no facilities operate, this is probably the biggest
problem I have--the lack of any facilities to maintain a piece
of equipment. I do not know how you do that effectively. I do
not know how you comply with the law effectively.
Where do you find their place of business? When you go to
inspect a curbside operator, if they do not have a maintenance
facility and they do not have some central place of business,
where do you even conduct an inspection? Just on the street?
Ms. Sandberg. One, when they register with us, they have to
identify a place of business where they keep their central
records. That is not necessarily where their buses might be
kept. So when we do a compliance review, that will be where we
go to look for their driver logs, their safety records, those
kinds of things.
To do inspections, we have worked with our State and local
partners to identify where they are picking up passengers and
dropping them off, since those are the two locations that we
can actually do inspections. And that is where we do the
inspections, is on the side of the road.
Mr. Sodrel. Being from the midwest, we do not have a lot of
that. I have noticed here in the city, a bus stopping on the
street corner and picking people up, in fact, not far from
where I am sitting. But it is not something that we were
confronted with in the midwest.
But we either have to enforce the rules formally or
eliminate the rules. Otherwise people are competing on an
unlevel playing field. I think the public's safety is served by
enforcing the rules formally as opposed to eliminating any
rules.
Thank you for being here. I may have some questions later,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. Pascrell. Administrator Sandberg, in a 2003 speech that
you made, you said the following: ``Our investigations revealed
a complex web of business relations,'' point one, ``among these
fare operators. It is challenging to determine who is
responsible for their operations.'' I read that a couple of
times, the first time I said, I must have read it incorrectly.
But that is what you said.
It is my understanding that while your administration cited
many curbside operators in violation of safety laws, you fined
them, you just reported that again today, and you shut them
down, some of them. But they continue to operate. This sounds
like an enforcement problem.
What enforcement tools, what investigative tools do you
need to ensure that repeat offenders are shut down permanently,
and have I stated what you said correctly?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes, you have stated what I said correctly.
The dilemma is, and we have the same thing with what I call the
low lying truck companies. These are companies that are in
business simply to try to make some money and safety is not a
priority to them at all. So they go into business, we identify
them as being unsafe because they do not keep their equipment
up, they are not drug and alcohol testing their drivers, they
are pushing their drivers to violate hours of service.
So we begin taking enforcement action. Then what the
company does is they shut down and they recreate themselves.
And they come and enter into our system as somebody new.
Oftentimes new boards of directors, new owners, they will
completely recreate themselves. It is very difficult for us to
identify that they were actually this older company.
Some of what we are doing right now in our licensing and
registration system is, we have a number of red flags that will
trigger in our system if a company tries to recreate itself and
it uses an address that is similar to one that we have shut
down, it uses a name of any of the board members that is
similar, or an owner. Those are three flags that help us
identify them.
The other thing that we are doing is when we go in and do
new entrant audits, because every one of these companies, when
they recreate themselves, becomes a new entrant, we have to go
in and do an audit. On bus companies, we are actually doing
those audits at 9 months instead of 18 months.
When we go in and do those audits we try to identify if it
is a company that actually was in business before under some
other name. If we identify that that is the case, we tag back
to the old name and the old safety record where we can, and
apply that to those companies.
The second thing that we do, and we are working with a
number of States, is a program called PRISM, which is our
registration information system. Under PRISM, there are
currently 21 States that have signed on, and it is fully
operational. When we place a bus company or a truck company out
of service, the biggest difficulty is getting them to stop
operating.
In some instances, we have actually parked people outside
their place of business to see if they move their truck or bus,
and we have done that recently, where we placed a company out
of service, we were worried that they were going to continue
operating. So we put somebody outside there for about a week to
look to see if they were going to move those buses. They did
not, and fortunately they followed the out of service order.
The other way to do it, though, is through PRISM, the
States mark the license plates of that particular carrier in
their system, so that the plates get pulled and revoked and
they cannot continue to operate. It is much more of a flag for
enforcement officers if there is no license plate on the truck.
Mr. Pascrell. So what you are saying is you do have the
tools, you have the resources and the tools.
Ms. Sandberg. The dilemma is, we only have 21 States that
have PRISM operational right now.
Mr. Pascrell. Excuse me. You have the resources and the
tools--
Ms. Sandberg. Yes, we do.
Mr. Pascrell.--to enforce the Federal laws. Is that what
you are telling us today?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you. Second question is this. The
Americans With Disabilities Act compliance and enforcement is
within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, correct?
Ms. Sandberg. Correct.
Mr. Pascrell. I fail to comprehend why not being in
compliance with the ADA has seemingly no bearing on the
granting of operating authority of a bus carrier. If a company
is in clear violation of the Federal law, why should a Federal
agency grant it authority to do anything? So in your opinion,
how can Congress remedy this situation?
Ms. Sandberg. The way that our licensing regulations are
set up, there are three things that we look at to grant
operating authority: the economic, safety and financial
responsibility, and these are old carryovers from the ICC days,
and those are the only three things that we look at. ADA is not
part of that.
One of the things that we are doing, though, to try to be
more aggressive with regard to the Americans With Disabilities
Act, sir, is that we are reminding new entrants of their
responsibilities under the ADA and in our new entrant
rulemaking that I just spoke about earlier, we are going to
have a component that when we go in and do a safety audit and
we identify non-ADA compliance with any company, we will then
forward that to Justice, so that they can begin taking
aggressive steps to address those companies.
Mr. Pascrell. Should there be a Federal law mandating, and
is there not a Federal law mandating that even small companies
comply with ADA?
Ms. Sandberg. They have to have 48 hours notice, yes. And
those are much more difficult to identify.
Mr. Pascrell. And who enforces that, the Justice
Department?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Sodrel, did you have additional
questions?
Mr. Sodrel. No, Mr. Chairman, not at this time.
Mr. Petri. Okay. Mr. DeFazio?
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A couple of things that have come up, Madam Administrator.
I was concerned to hear about the out of service and still
operating issue. I do not know what else we can do in terms of
more. Has there ever been, if someone was to attempt, and
apparently they must have, are there instances where people
have attempted to continue operating?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio. At that point, does it become a criminal
issue? Has there been a criminal prosecution if they are under
a Federal compliance order, and they are ignoring the order and
continuing to jeopardize public safety?
Ms. Sandberg. We try to work with the States to identify
those carriers, place them out of business. There have been
instances, I think, where criminal charges have been brought at
a State level. I think there may have been some instances where
a U.S. attorney has brought some Federal criminal charges. But
they are very, very difficult.
Mr. DeFazio. Right. Well, I mean, the recreation, it seems
to me that perhaps we need a different fitness standard. I am
thinking of aviation. Part of a fitness review is financial
wherewithal, the credentials of the principal officers and
those sorts of things which would, if we had that standard and
a company had had problems, and they tried to reestablish
themselves under another business name, if we had more
stringent fitness standards, they would not have any potential
of getting another number.
Do you feel that perhaps, and whether it could be done
administratively or whether we would have to do it statutorily
that we should have more robust fitness standards? Because you
said you can't look at and don't look at their financial
condition, which is a big red flag in the aviation industry and
I would assume it would be the same in bus or trucking.
Ms. Sandberg. When the ICC terminated and gave us a lot of
the functions that used to exist there, a lot of those
financial regulations went away under the ICC Termination Act.
One of the dilemmas we have, and we have had this in the
medical arena, even, in comparing us to aviation, is the volume
of companies that operate in this line of business, 680,000
companies.
So we had this issue come up last year about why couldn't
we put the same kind of medical requirements on truck and bus
drivers that we put on airline pilots. There is a much smaller
pool of airline pilots than there are truck and bus drivers. We
look at our pool being about 7 to 10 million as opposed to, I
think it is 600,000 for airline pilots. If we tried to equate
just that regulation regime alone to our industry, it would be
hundreds of millions of dollars.
So I guess that is the balancing act. We are trying to
tighten down some of our regulations to identify loopholes.
Having been a former police officer, I can tell you, most of
the time the crooks are one step ahead. These people that do
not want to do business right are always going to try to find a
loophole and continue to do business. That is where we really
need to work with our State and local partners to identify
these pockets of problems and really focus on them and take
care of the safety issue that they are causing.
Mr. DeFazio. Is the issuance of a number, which I guess is
sort of the certification you provide, is that a routine
procedure? It is my understanding in talking to staff that in a
couple of States, Massachusetts and New York, the police have
reported that essentially the addresses provided were fake, and
then the whole question of the required 18 month review, which
I guess for new operators is not always conducted.
So I mean, is this just because of the volume, it is a
rather routine paper exercise, and you do not have the
wherewithal or it is not required that there actually be a site
visit or some sort of confirmation that this is a bona fide
business and that that address actually exists, and therefore,
the records might exist that we would go and review?
Ms. Sandberg. To get the actual registration number, that
is a fairly easy process at the front end. You can go on to our
web site and you can probably register to be a company today
and it would take you maybe an hour, if that. That part is
fairly easy. The audit process though is where we help identify
those that have filed false addresses. Because one of the
things that we have to have is the ability to contact that
company to go do the audits.
As I said, for motorcoach operations, we flag them that we
are going to do a motorch ch audit within the first nine months
of operation. For all other commercial ch ch vehicles, it is 18
months. That is when we will identify if the information that
they provided on that registration information at the front end
was correct or not.
If they do not respond to an audit request, we can simply
flag them out and tell them that they can no longer operate. We
are strengthening some of our new audit process in this new
rulemaking to do just that, to make sure that if these people
do not respond to an audit request or they are simply evading
us by giving us a false address that we can deal with them in
that manner.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Several members have additional
questions. I thought I might ask, myself, you alluded to this,
but do you have a--clearly this is, primary front line
enforcement within a Federal framework must be done by the
State and local authorities. Is there a big difference between
States so far as complaints from the public about this kind of
thing, number one? And is there a big difference between
complaints from the public from these, because of experiences
with these sort of jitney or China operators, whatever you want
to call them, and what we regard as a more traditional
Greyhound and so on?
No service is going to be perfect. There are going to be
bad experiences just in the nature of, unfortunately, in the
nature of just doing business and interaction. Is this a
disproportionate source of problems and is it localized? Should
we be focusing on helping some States beef up their operations?
What is the nature of the problem and how can we deal with it,
basically?
Ms. Sandberg. The nature of the problem is very unique to
what I would say the Northeast Corridor. I can tell you, having
come from Washington State, we do not have these kinds of bus
operations out there where they go curbside. You just would not
see a bus pull up by a sidewalk and see a bunch of people get
on.
Mr. DeFazio. Didn't the Green Tortoise come to Washington,
or is that an Oregon and California and Mexico thing?
Ms. Sandberg. That is Oregon and California.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Sandberg. But it is very unique to the Northeast
Corridor. The only other place that we have identified a
corridor where there are curbside operations is California to
Nevada, primarily into the Las Vegas area. And we are seeing
some of those curbside operators pop up there.
There are some smaller, more small fixed route and large
fixed route. Typically they operate out of a terminal. They are
easy to identify.
Again, in looking at the curbside operators, that being
primarily a Northeast Corridor problem, we are targeting them
in a very specific way. But we are looking at ch ch ch ch
across the bh rd. To keep it in perspective, of the 680,000
companies, this means, and I am looking at about 3,900
companies, and they equate to whatever fatality number, 22, 39.
If you look at all commercial ch ch vehicle fatalities, it is
5,000. We are trying to drive those numbers down.
So while I need to focus attention here, and believe me, I
honestly believe that one fatality is too many. But I also need
to focus on the other 4,000 plus fatalities that occur with
regard to trucks. So we are trying to balance our resources.
Part of doing that is really making sure that the States, which
have far more people out there on the rh dside, the 11,000 plus
people, have a formalized program.
Now, for some States that do not have a large curbside
problem, they are not going to have a huge focus on curbside
operators. In fact, if they did, we would say, hey, that should
not be in your plan unless you can tell us where the curbside
operators operate in your State. But they should have a ch ch
ch ch program. Every State has charter operators, every State
has tour operators. And those bus companies need to be
inspected also. They need to make sure that their drivers are
being drug and alcohol tested. And they need to make sure that
they are following the hours of service rule.
So occasionally, as you know, Mr. Chairman, we recently had
a bus crash up in Wisconsin and five people died in that crash.
That was a charter operator. We are working together with the
NTSB to try to identify what the cause of that crash was.
But we need to focus on what the unique problem is for each
State, and then make sure the State has a plan on how they are
going to go about addressing that. Some of that is through
doing inspections at origin or destination. It is through doing
these targeted compliance reviews. And since we are going to be
doing another 450 this next year, making sure that we target
the right companies and continue to look at companies and make
sure that all companies are operating safely.
But it is very unique to the Northeast Corridor, the
curbside operators.
Mr. Petri. And so far as looking at it from the point of
view of the traveling public, clearly they must be providing a
service some people want or at least maybe because of cost or
because of convenience, they have identified shifts in the
market quicker than more traditional operators?
Ms. Sandberg. Right. I run into people all the time that
say that they have taken these curbside operators and they had
a great bus ride. But I am not sure, I do not watch the market
economy, obviously they are focusing on something. Because they
are filling up the buses and they are moving people.
There are millions of people that take bus transportation
every year. It is a very safe, economical way to travel. And a
lot of people use it, whether it is the curbside operators or
the larger fixed routes.
Mr. Petri. So it is a marketing opportunity for Greyhound
or people like that, that that are not getting into certain
communities, presumably, or whatever.
Ms. Sandberg. I would leave that for the folks at Greyhound
or whoever might be here from ABA.
Mr. Petri. But do you get a disproportionate amount or
would you say that complaints from the public are roughly the
same as best you can tell from the different types of
operators? Or is this a hot spot of complaints?
Ms. Sandberg. We have not had hundreds of thousands of
complaints, actually I get far more complaints in the area of
household goods than I do with regard to ADA compliance. But we
have gotten complaints. And to me, any complaint is serious. If
somebody needs to have affordable transportation and it is
being denied, we need to take that very seriously. So any
complaints that we have received, what we have tried to do is
identify the carrier, find out do they have accessible buses,
and check to see if they are meeting the regulations. And if
they are not, then forwarding that case to the Department of
Justice to take appropriate enforcement action.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan?
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for calling this hearing. This is something that I don't
know really anything about. I am sorry I did not get to hear
most of your testimony and your responses to questions, because
I have been with 136 students and teachers from a school in my
district.
But let me ask you this. And maybe you have already covered
this. How many bus companies are there total, charter operators
and everything, that are doing the right thing and registering
with you? How many bus companies have gone through the legal
process, so to speak?
Ms. Sandberg. We have registered in our data base 3,900 bus
companies.
Mr. Duncan. Thirty-nine hundred.
Ms. Sandberg. Thirty-nine hundred.
Mr. Duncan. And then, how many of these curbside operators
are there that you know about or what is your best estimate?
Ms. Sandberg. The estimate changes daily. But I believe
right now 24, 25, is what they tell me for curbside operators.
Mr. Duncan. So it is not really fair, is it, to make all
those honest people do the right thing and then let these
others not do that. Is that basically one of your feelings?
Ms. Sandberg. That is correct. That is why we are doing
strike force activities.
Mr. Duncan. That would be understandable. And you say that
it would take, did I hear you say that it would take an hour,
only about an hour to register, is that correct?
Ms. Sandberg. It is right around there. It depends on the
complexity of the paperwork. But if you go online and fill the
forms out online, it is not very difficult.
Mr. Duncan. Do you think that the regulatory requirements,
are they so burdensome that it would cause a great increase in
the price these companies would have to charge? I had a member
of my staff tell me that there is one company that takes people
directly from Union Station to New York City for $35. Do we
have any kind of idea about, if somebody goes through all your
regulatory processes, would that price have to double or triple
or what?
Ms. Sandberg. No. Most of the companies that follow our
regulatory process can actually probably beat that fare. But
the folks from ABA could answer specific pricing questions.
Mr. Duncan. And the company, you said it was a charter
company in Wisconsin that had a recent wreck, but that was not
a curbside operator?
Ms. Sandberg. No, it was not.
Mr. Duncan. How many, say, in the last--when was this
curbside operation, when was this first bought to your
attention?
Ms. Sandberg. I believe in 2004 is when we started the
Northeast Corridor Task Force.
Mr. Duncan. So since that time, how many wrecks have there
been of these curbside operators, do you know? Have there been
a lot of accidents?
Ms. Sandberg. My staff tells me there have been three.
Mr. Duncan. Three. Anybody been killed?
Ms. Sandberg. No. Except for I guess somebody ran into the
back of a bus and that person died. But it wasn't the bus's
fault.
Mr. Duncan. Are these companies, based on your
investigation, do they have insurance?
Ms. Sandberg. That is part of the requirement of our giving
them operating authorities. They have to post insurance.
Mr. Duncan. But as far as the curbside operators, you don't
know whether they have insurance or whether they don't?
Ms. Sandberg. No, they have to show us that they have
insurance. I do know that some of the curbside operators have
had difficulty getting insurance, particularly if we have been
taking enforcement action on them. But they have to post
insurance and show that their insurance is valid in order for
us to allow them to continue to operate.
Mr. Duncan. I see. So there may be some curbside operators
operating without insurance, but all the ones that you have
checked so far have it, is that what you are saying?
Ms. Sandberg. If they are operating in interstate commerce
and they have registered with us, they have to have insurance.
Now, there are some--
Mr. Duncan. Well, I know, but the problem is that they
don't register with you, at least when they first start
operating, is that correct?
Ms. Sandberg. No, if they are operating in interstate
commerce, by law they have to register with us. What we have
found, though, in working with our State and local partners,
there are some that are trying to operate, once we identify
that they are operating, in interstate commerce, which means
that they are crossing State lines. We go to the company, tell
them that they have to cease operations until they register,
and until they comply with all the financial requirements.
Mr. Duncan. I guess I am a little confused. You said, I
thought you said they all register with you right at the first.
And that surprised me. I thought these were companies that that
were not registered. But they all register with you right at
the very first.
Ms. Sandberg. They are supposed to, yes.
Mr. Duncan. Doesn't that trigger the regulatory process,
then?
Ms. Sandberg. Yes, it does. That means that they have to
have insurance in order to move. In fact, we will not give them
a number unless they can show that they have insurance. We will
not give them the authority to operate without insurance.
Mr. Duncan. You are confusing me, because if a company has
to register with you when it first starts operating, and that
triggers the regulatory process, then why are they called
curbside operators? I mean, there is something real simple that
you or I one is missing, and it is probably me.
But you said that they can't operate until they register
with you and they all register with you. And that starts a
regulatory process. So what I am trying to figure out is, how
do you call them curbside operators? They just haven't gone
through all the steps yet?
Ms. Sandberg. No, the definition of a curbside operator is
somebody that picks up and drops off their passengers at a
curbside. They are a regular bus company. They have registered
with us, they just don't operate out of terminals like
Greyhound or Peter Pan or one of those companies. That is why
they are called curbside operators. They operate a bit
differently in that they do not have a terminal site that they
pick up passengers and drop passengers off at.
Mr. Duncan. Well, that by itself is not illegal, though, is
that right?
Ms. Sandberg. No, it is not.
Mr. Duncan. Well, if all these curbside operators register
with you and that creates a regulatory process, then I still
don't see, I really thought there was, I thought these people
were all operating illegally, but they are not.
Ms. Sandberg. No. What will happen occasionally, and this
is only occasionally, and we have the same problem with
trucking companies, where you get somebody that gets the idea,
hey, I want to go into business. They go and they buy a bus and
they just start picking people up. Those are what we call non-
entrants. It means that they don't know that all these rules
and regulations apply to them. If they cross State lines, then
our regulations apply.
And as we have done these strike force activities, we have
identified some of those companies. But they are few and far
between. A majority of them know that they have to register
with us, they register with us, they get their insurance, they
put the name on the side of the bus and they start operating.
Mr. Duncan. All right, but then you said that some of these
companies, you don't know whether they are abiding by the hours
of service rules, you don't know whether they have given drug
tests to their employees, and all that kind of thing. Do you
not, when they register with you, do you not immediately tell
them of all hose things and then go ahead and start checking
them?
Ms. Sandberg. They are made aware of our rules. But because
we have 40,000 and 50,000--it is between 40,000 and 50,000 new
entrants every year in interstate commerce, and that is truck
and bus companies combined. What we do is, the rule requires
that we get to those new entrants within the first 18 months of
operation. We don't do the audit prior to them getting
operating authority. They actually can get operating authority,
begin operating and then we go in and do the audit.
With bus companies, specifically, we do it within the first
nine months of operation. We will go in and look at all of
their records, make sure that they are doing drug and alcohol
testing, make sure that they have drivers that have a passenger
endorsement, look at their hours of service logs, those kinds
of things. And then of course, any truck or bus that is out
there, whether they are in new entrant or have been in business
for a while, as they pass the rh dside or if the State chooses
to inspect them, can inspect them at any point in time.
Mr. Duncan. So if a curbside operator registered with you
at the first and you said you can't get to them possibly for 18
months--
Ms. Sandberg. The first nine.
Mr. Duncan. Oh, the first nine months. So if they have
something happen six or eight months, they could be in
operation six or eight months and there is no real violation
that they have done, if it is your agency's fault or whatever
for not getting to them sooner, is that right?
Ms. Sandberg. We try to get to them in the first nine
months. If they do something at month five, we do not have
control over that.
Mr. Duncan. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Sodrel?
Mr. Sodrel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to relate a little short story to you. You
have two kinds of people that fail to comply with the law. You
have people who are ignorant of the law and you have people
that do it with malice and forethought. I had a candid
conversation with one of your inspectors, and this is several
years ago, so I do not think I am doing him a disservice. I
told him I thought he came in and did inspections at our place
because the coffee was good. That is the way we started the
conversation.
He said, well, the coffee is good, matter of fact, but he
said that the system of evaluating agents was based more on
process than results, that when he was first hired, he started
chasing bad guys that were bad guys by malice. Well, if
somebody is doing it with malice, they try to cover up the fact
that they are violating the law. They know they are violating
the law, so they try to make sure you don't find out about it,
which requires checks to see when a vehicle may have gone
across a way station, you have to pull fuel tickets, see when
it was fueled and look at motel room receipts. You have to do
all this work to find the person that is doing it with malice.
The inspector was told that he was not doing enough audits.
So I was just wondering, is your system of evaluating agents
still process oriented or is it results oriented? Is it bad
guys caught or going through the motions?
Ms. Sandberg. It is very much results oriented. I am not
going to say that it hasn't always been that way. We clearly
had a bit of an education bent when I came in. But I am an
enforcement person. I came from the State Police, and I am
about results. And that is what we get measured on, both by OMB
on how they look at how much money they give us and by the
Members up here on the Hill, on whether we are getting results
from our programs.
So we have modified some of our programs to be more
enforcement focused. I believe that first people need to be
educated in what their responsibilities are as a business
operator and that we need to make sure everybody understands
what the law is, that we write our rules in plain English. As
you know, sometimes in Government, particularly if you get a
lot of lawyers involved, and I can say this because I am one,
it is not easy for the average person to understand what it is
that we put on paper.
So we need to make it very clear on what our expectations
are that they are supposed to do, if it is drug and alcohol
testing, how do they go about doing that, if it is getting
drivers with commercial drivers licenses, what should they look
for, those kinds of things.
But in the back end, there are those people that just
simply, no matter how much we educate them, are not going to do
it. That is when we need to have the enforcement hammer and we
need to take care of those people, and if they don't comply
after we enforce, then we need to take them out of business.
They need to decide to be doing something different.
So that is the strategy I have used the last three years
that I have been here. And if you look at a lot of our
rulemakings, that is the focus that we are moving toward, is
education at the front end, make sure they understand what
their responsibilities are as a business owner, coming into the
commercial vehicle business, and then if they don't get it
after that, then we need to enforce.
Mr. Sodrel. If I might just follow up on that one, Rudy
Guiliani went in as mayor of New York, they had a system of
policing where you basically had precincts and people went out
in the precincts and did whatever they did. His idea was, we
need to throw the resources at the problem. So we need to
identify where are the problems, and rather than having
everybody patrolling every place, we throw our assets at the
place where the most problems exist.
And the question is, do you have any similar system with
regard to enforcement today where you can use the assets to
their best advantage. Obviously, everybody has a finite number
of assets.
Ms. Sandberg. Absolutely. That is our SAFESTAT system. Not
everybody likes our system. That is too bad. Clearly, the
audits and the inspections that have been done on that system
show that it identifies high risk carriers. The system is
driven by inspections at the rh d side, or in the case of ch ch
ch ch, at origin and destination.
So all the inspections that are done by the hundreds of
thousands of people that are out there, actually it is over 3
million rh dside inspections done every year. All those
inspections are uplh ded into our system, so it identifies what
company was inspected, when were they inspected and what
violations were discovered.
We also look at ch ch carrier management areas as we go in
and do compliance reviews and other ways, when we are doing
audits. We also look at crash data. States report crash data to
us and that is uplh ded into the system.
The system then has an algorithm that looks at all other
carriers that are like that particular carrier and it
identifies those that are the highest risk. Then the highest
risks are rated in our system and then our enforcement people,
along with the State folks, are told to go visit this carrier.
This is considered the highest risk carrier, they are at a much
greater risk for being involved in a crash, not maintaining
their vehicles, other problems. And that is how we go and
visit.
Mr. Sodrel. Thank you. Thank you for being here today, and
thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you, and we appreciate your contribution
to this hearing.
Ms. Sandberg. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. The second panel consists of Jacqueline Gillan,
Vice President, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety; Marilyn
Golden, Policy Analyst at the Disability Rights Education and
Defense Fund; Bruce Hamilton, President of Local 1700,
Amalgamated Transit Union; and Peter Pantuso, President and CEO
of the American Bus Association.
We welcome you all to this hearing. We appreciate the
effort that went into your prepared statements and we look
forward to hearing your approximately five minute summaries of
the same, starting with Ms. Gillan.
TESTIMONY OF JACQUELINE S. GILLAN, VICE PRESIDENT, ADVOCATES
FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY; MARILYN GOLDEN, POLICY ANALYST,
DISABILITY RIGHTS EDUCATION AND DEFENSE FUND; BRUCE HAMILTON,
PRESIDENT/BUSINESS AGENT, AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION LOCAL 1700,
AFL-CIO; PETER J. PANTUSO, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN BUS
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Gillan. Thank you very much. I would like to extend my
appreciation to the Subcommittee for having the hearings today
and for inviting advocates to testify.
Many of us in this hearing room have family members of
friends who have taken advantage of bargain fares offered by
intercity curbside bus operators or put our child on a
chartered school bus for an out of town school field trip, or
traveled on a church-sponsored trip using hired bus
transportation. Motor ch ch safety is a serious concern for
anyone who relies and uses this growing and affordable mode of
transportation.
Unfortunately, when it comes to ch ch ch ch safety,
consumers are bh rding buses blindfolded because of chronic and
continuing failures by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration to regulate the safety of this industry and the
inexcusable lack of public information available to companies
about the safety record of ch ch ch ch companies.
In particular, little is known about the size of curbside
ch ch ch ch operations, including how many companies are
evading Federal and State safety requirements and how much
Government oversight is being applied to ensure that unsafe
operators and unsafe drivers are off the rh d.
Since 1999 alone, NTSB has investigated and reported on
eight major ch ch ch ch crashes. Because ch ch ch ches carry up
to 55 passengers, when a crash does occur, it can be
catastrophic and deadly. Every day there are thousands of small
commuter airline flights in the U.S., yet in most cases each
aircraft is carrying fewer passengers than over-the-rh d ch ch
ch ches that may be filled to capacity. Unfortunately, public
authorities have chronically overlooked ch ch ch ch safety and
it is not being held to the same high standards as aviation
safety.
One of the major problems is that the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration lacks reliable information on State
annual bus safety inspections, and there are major deficiencies
for identifying ch ch carriers, including ch ch ch ch operators
that are high safety risks. Today, only half of the States even
have an improved periodic inspection program despite a 1984
Federal law directing DOT to issue standards for annual
inspections of commercial ch ch vehicles, including ch ch ch
ches.
There have been countless studies by GAO and the DOT
Inspector General documenting insufficient data, incomplete
data and inaccurate data that the FMCSA has about these
carriers. Also, Government compliance reviews or the safety
evaluations of commercial ch ch vehicle operators, where the
Government gives rating scores of satisfactory condition or
unsatisfactory, are grossly out of date or for the most part,
not given at all to the vast majority of operating companies.
Data deficiencies and incomplete safety information keeps
consumers in the dark. Let me give you a brief example. My
staff went on the FMCSA web sit and evaluated ch ch ch ch
information in four States: Maryland, Wisconsin, Oregon and
Texas. Let me use as an example my own Sate of Maryland. There
were 100 ch ch ch ch companies listed, more than half of them
were not rated at all, 5 had a conditional rating and 39 had a
satisfactory rating. Of the 39 companies with a satisfactory
rating, more than half were totally incomplete and did not
evaluate these companies in more than in all four of the
possible categories.
Also, these ratings were out of date. Most of them were
given in the 1990s. In fact, there was one rating that had been
assigned 18 years ago.
There are also inadequate Federal and State requirements
for ch ch ch ch drivers, even though they carry 55 people.
Motor ch ch drivers are required to have a commercial drivers
license with an additional bus endorsement that can be obtained
by passing a short knowledge test.
But there is no behind the wheel driving requirements in
the Federal law. Although DOT has been studying this for 20
years, they produced a model curriculum and they were directed
by Congress in the 1991 ISTEA Act to issue an entry level
driver training rule.
In May of 2004, they did an abrupt about face and issued a
rule that did not require any behind the wheel training for
candidates seeking an entry level CDL to operate a truck or a
bus. As a result of this rule, advocates filed suit against
FMCSA and last year, in a unanimous and blistering decision,
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found
that the final rule was arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of
the agency discretion and remanded the rule to FMCSA.
What can be done? Advocates would like to offer some
suggestions for Congressional consideration. First, we need to
have the information and we would recommend requiring a
detailed oversight report on curbside ch ch ch ch operating
safety. Congress should ask the DOT Inspector General or
another Federal oversight organization, such as GAO, to conduct
an in-depth evaluation of curbside ch ch ch ch operations that
identifies how many there are, which ones are successfully
operating or evading State and Federal compliance requirements
and what needs to be done to ensure a high level of public
safety.
Second, we need more stringent State bus inspection
programs. Third, we need to accelerate the basic reform of
safety data reporting and compliance reviews. This has been a
recommendation of the NTSB on their most wanted list since
1999.
We also need to upgrade the testing requirements for both
entry level CDLs and special endorsements, especially those for
ch ch ch ch operations. And finally, we need to require entry
level commercial ch ch vehicle and advanced ch ch ch ch driver
training requirements for actually operating a ch ch ch ch.
This is the conclusion of my testimony. There is much work
to be done, and Advocates would very much like to work with
this Committee to ensure that no matter whether you get on a
plane or get on a train, or use a bus, that you ought to be
guaranteed the same level of safety by our Federal Government.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Ms. Golden.
Ms. Golden. Thank you.
More than 15 years ago, I watched with exhilaration and
pride as the first President Bush signed the Americans With
Disabilities Act, granting millions of people with disabilities
comprehensive civil rights. Exhilaration because it was the
culmination of work by thousands of people with disabilities
and our supporters, and pride because my colleagues and I at
the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, a national
law and policy center on disability civil rights, had made a
significant contribution to the ADA. We have been deeply
involved in its unfolding ever since.
As our society recently gave our final farewell to Rosa
Parks, I was reminded that the Montgomery bus boycott she
started fully integrated those buses in 1955. But in 1998, more
than 40 years later, people with disabilities were still
waiting for the right to ride the long distance bus. How long,
we asked, must we wait.
Then almost eight years ago, one of the last pieces of the
ADA fell into place when the U.S. Department of Transportation
issued the rules guaranteeing disability access in intercity
bus travel. As that regulation was implemented, we saw
companies that had supported the ADA and companies that had
resisted it come into compliance with that landmark law.
In my own life, what once would have been impossible became
unremarkable when one day a few years ago I needed transport
between two major cities in Texas, my State of origin, and I
had a smooth and anonymous trip on an accessible lift-equipped
over-the-rh d bus.
But in the last few years, the rise of curbside operators
that completely disregard the ADA has meant that no longer are
all transportation options available to people with
disabilities. I will address what the ADA requires of these
companies, at least the major things, with a lot of the details
in my written testimony. The key to bus access for mobility
impaired people, who like me, can't use the steps, is the ADA's
requirement that all new buses must be wheelchair accessible.
The cost issue for this is ameliorated by a DOT subsidy
program unrelated to the ADA. But most curbside operators do
not obtain new buses. They get used buses, which means they
fall under what the Americans With Disabilities Act requires
the interim service requirements. They are the same ones a big
company like Greyhound must follow at first, until its entire
bus fleet is accessible, so that it graduates out of this
category.
But in the case of an operator using used buses, like the
companies we are talking about, they would be required to
follow the interim requirements indefinitely. And that means,
as Ms. Sandberg stated earlier, the company is allowed to
require a rider with a disability to give up to 48 hours
advance notice. But then it must provide accessible service on
the bus run the person requested, and not at another time.
In narrow circumstances, such a company, if it is small,
may provide an equivalent service instead, that is, service in
a different vehicle, as long as it departs as soon as the main
vehicle, goes as quickly to the same destination, costs the
same and provides an equal service in every other way. This is
really only practical with an accessible bus.
Though, if a company is going, say, from New York to Boston
at noon on Tuesday, and it has several buses going at the same
time to the same destination point, it would be okay under the
equivalency standard for only one of these buses to provide
wheelchair access. Other than in this narrow circumstance, the
equivalency provision does not help the curbside operators very
much. They are still required by the ADA to provide an
accessible vehicle on any run, as long as an individual with a
disability provides 48 hours advance notice.
There are also general non-discrimination issues which
prohibit excluding the blind travelers discussed earlier, and
compliance with those rules costs nothing. There are also rest
stop requirements, training requirements and information
collection provisions which require the companies confirm any
accessibility request in writing and documenting any failure to
provide accessible service to the individual.
Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, my
name is Bruce Hamilton. I am the President of Amalgamated
Transit Union National Local 1700, representing about 4,000
employees of Greyhound Lines.
It is a pleasure to be here today to speak on behalf of our
members, as well as members of other ATU locals representing
workers who work with Peter Pan Lines and Bonanza Lines and
other carriers who provide intercity bus service in the U.S.
Thank you very much for holding this hearing, and thank you
for inviting the ATU to participate. Having driven a Greyhound
bus for almost 30 years, I know first-hand the level of skill
and training that is required, as well as the importance of
maintaining a fleet that meets or exceeds Federal safety
standards. Safety is of prominent importance to the ATU. That
is why we work closely with the industry and with our
employers, both in the development of driver safety and vehicle
standards, and the implementation of those and other Federal
standards in the workplace.
The Greyhound driver and maintenance training programs,
which were developed in partnership with the ATU, are examples
of our joint commitment not only to meeting Federal standards,
but to exceeding them. These training programs, which are
widely recognized as the best in the industry, ensure that
every driver and mechanic has competed extensive hands-on
training covering all DOT driver and vehicle safety
requirements, as well as additional safe driving skills,
emergency evacuation practices and health and safety
precautions. Drivers and mechanics also attend frequent
refresher courses on a variety of these issues.
The ATU is proud of the safe, efficient, friendly and
affordable intercity bus service that our members provide
across this Country. We are dedicated to ensuring that the
companies whose employees we represent are able to continue to
provide a valuable service to the traveling public.
Unfortunately, the continuation of this service has been
threatened recently by the emergence of these numerous fringe
bus operations that is the subject of this hearing today.
Reports from passengers, ATU members, other legitimate bus
providers and State and local and Federal officials, paint a
picture of curbside operators that too often fail to comply
with Federal rules governing hours of service, drug and alcohol
testing, medical examinations, CDLs, proper registration,
licensing, insurance and maintenance practices. In addition,
there are numerous reports and complaints that these carriers
fail to safely dispose of waste products and are not in
compliance with the accessibility standards set by the ADA.
By ignoring these laws, these companies are able to
undercut established carriers such as Greyhound and Peter Pan
that follow Federal rules and support good jobs for their
employees. Recent media reports have documented several serious
accidents involving curbside operators within the last year,
including two bus fires and a pedestrian fatality. As well as
questionable incidents, including a recent incident where a
driver fled the scene when police launched a surprise
inspection of bus operations in New York's Chinatown. These
incidents and others are explored further in my written
testimony.
What I really want to speak to you about today is what my
fellow ATU members have themselves witnessed while sharing the
rh ds with these other carriers. The most common complaints
heard from ATU members about curbside operators concern their
erratic and dangerous driving behavior. Drivers frequently
report being cut off by these carriers, excessive speeding,
constant lane changes, and driving in the prohibited left lane.
It is also not uncommon for a Greyhound or Peter Pan driver
to see these vehicles broken down at the side of the rh d. In
these instances, good Samaritan ATU members have stopped to
pick up stranded passengers and have delivered them to their
destinations without requesting payment.
Members have reported seeing vehicles owned by these
companies doing routine maintenance, such as oil change and
other engine work, in empty parking lots or on the side of the
rh d. This evidences a failure to have adequate maintenance and
inspection facilities, as required under the Federal
regulations.
In Boston, ATU members working out of the same terminal as
the drivers for these carriers have reported that many of the
drivers do not speak English. Since the ability to read and
speak English is required of any commercial ch ch vehicle
driver, these experiences call into question the driver's
qualifications and validity of their CDLs.
Our members also regularly hear complaints from passengers
who have previously traveled with curbside carriers. These
include unsafe driving practices, inability to communicate with
the driver, unsanitary or inoperable restroom facilities, the
lack of anyone to help with baggage, and numerous other
complaints. Similarly, passengers with disabilities have
reported being turned away by curbside operators and often told
to go to Greyhound for accessible service.
These reports of incidents should come as no surprise to
Federal officials. Recent FMCSA compliance reviews indicate
that low cost operators score dramatically low, below the
national average in terms of safety. There is no excuse for
continuing to allow these unsafe companies on the rh d. We must
be more aggressive with the enforcement of safety regulations,
the penalties must be significant enough to deter violations
and follow-up must ensure continued compliance.
By allowing a fringe element of the industry to evade basic
requirements, legitimate operators are placed in an impossible
competitive position. More importantly, the safety and well-
being of passengers and other highway users is needlessly
jeopardized. There is simply no reason for this double standard
to exist. Federal, State and local officials must institute
measures that will protect the traveling public from this
growing safety threat on our Nation's highways.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Pantuso.
Mr. Pantuso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
DeFazio, members of the Committee.
ABA is the primary trade association representing the
private over-the-rh d bus industry and has 800 bus operator
members who represent in total about 65 percent of all the
private buses on the rh d today. ABA's members provide all
types of transportation services.
Today's hearing exposes a real threat, not only to the bus
industry, to the transportation system, but especially to the
774 million individuals who travel by bus annually. The problem
of unregulated, unfit, ill-policed ch ch ch ch companies is one
of growing concern. And we agree with Administrator Sandberg:
our concerns are for all passenger carriers who do not comply
with in the boundaries of the law and that safety is a primary
concern.
But Mr. Chairman, let me be clear. We are talking about an
industry with a stellar safety record, and the companies we are
talking about, the curbside operators, do not represent the
industry and are in fact a black eye for the industry,
operating outside of the law.
Let me define curbside operators and the harm that they can
and will eventually cause. Let me also be clear that this is
not a ``David versus Goliath'' issue. In an industry that is
primarily made up of mom and pop companies, these operators,
the curbside operators, are some of the largest in the
industry, and in fact, promote themselves as such.
The operators I am describing bh st of providing low cost
service between cities, as you earlier described, Mr. Chairman.
And their service begins and ends on street corners. Typically
they have no maintenance program, let alone maintenance
facilities, and they seemingly operate on a shoestring.
The carriers also operate in defiance of Federal, State and
local laws. Chief among their deficiencies is the lack of
wheelchair accessible buses in their fleets. The Americans With
Disabilities Act that requires as of this October that large
scheduled carriers have at least 50 percent of their fleet
lift-equipped and provide 48 hour service and should have been
buying ch ches for the last 6 years with lifts have been doing
so. But these carriers have not been following those rules and
regulations. Wheelchair lifts are not cheap, as was pointed
out, at $40,000 per lift and a cost of $40 million to the
industry annually.
Curbside operators have no wheelchair lifts, so therefore
they have no ability to comply with the ADA law. And typically,
as was noted, they direct their customers who are in need of
lift-equipped ch ches to Trailways, Greyhound and other
reputable carriers.
All interstate bus companies are licensed by the FMCSA, and
FMCSA is supposed to license only carriers who are fit, willing
and able to abide by the law and the regulations of the
Secretary of Transportation. The Secretary may in fact invoke
authority of any carrier that fails to comply with the
regulations.
However, FMCSA allows curbside operators who are in clear
violation of the ADA law a civil right operating authority,
arguing it cannot use ADA violations to deny authority to any
carrier. FMCSA argues that the ADA bus regulations promulgated
in 1998 by the Secretary of Transportation are not in fact
regulations of the Secretary of Transportation and cannot be
used to determine fitness.
The position is unsound legally, and as a matter of public
policy, lacks any common sense. FMCSA's view allows a violation
of the law if the law is enforced by another agency. Even if it
does abdicate its responsibility for the service requirements
under the ADA law, it cannot foist responsibility for the ADA
equipment requirements and the purchase requirements on any
other agency.
FMCSA is required to enforce Federal DOT safety
regulations. As has been noted, many of the curbside operators
have well documented lists of safety deficiencies. They lack
proper equipment, trained drivers, safety and security training
and protocols for environmental waste.
Even worse, some of these operators do not have operating
authority. Recently, Dragon Ch ch, for example, which operates
between Washington and Albany, New York, had no authority to
operate that route and had no application applying for
authority.
Speeding, braking, traffic laws, ignoring other infractions
of the law, were detailed in one recent Washington Post column.
Other articles detail failures to aid passengers in emergency
situations. And even to heed the passengers' warnings when the
driver was alerted when the bus was on fire.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, the
ABA believes that the laws concerning safety and security, as
well as compliance with ADA, should apply to all carriers. The
safety of passengers should not be compromised under any
circumstance, certainly not for cost. Denying authority or
revoking the authority of an operator who violates or refuses
to abide by the laws should be a mandatory function of FMCSA,
and Congress should insist that FMCSA and the Department of
Transportation do what is required to prevent any carrier from
making a mockery of our safe transportation system.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I think this panel has provided some very
solid direction for the Committee. I am hopeful the Committee
will choose to follow up aggressively on a number of the
concerns that have been raised here, everything from the safety
concerns to the ADA concerns. I just hark back, we used to have
a restaurant rating system, this would be sort of a minimal
thing in Oregon, where there is like a big seal on the door, A,
B, C, you know, et cetera. The Restaurant Association lobbied
it out of existence because it hurt their business too much
when people were getting Cs and Ds.
But something like, put a big seal there and say,
basically, caution, you are about to get on a bus that really
hasn't been inspected. But this is endemic, and we have to take
some action here. Otherwise we are going to be acting after a
tragedy.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being
here.
Mr. Petri. I want to thank you also for your testimony. We
may be submitting some questions in writing to you. We have one
more panel and we are going to be having votes in about 10
minutes. So we thank you very much.
The third panel consists of Mr. Pei Lin Liang, Owner of
Fung Wah Bus Transportation, Inc., and Mr. David Wang, Co-Owner
and Manager of Eastern Travel, Inc. Gentlemen, we thank you for
submitting your prepared statements. As you know, we invite you
to make summary remarks for about five minutes.
We will begin with Mr. Liang. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF PEI LIN LIANG, PRESIDENT, FUNG WAH BUS
TRANSPORTATION, INC.; DAVID WANG, CO-OWNER AND MANAGER, EASTERN
TRAVEL, INC.
Mr. Liang. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I, Pei Lin Liang, am the President
of Fung Wah Bus Transportation, Inc. Our bus company began five
years ago. We service only one route: Boston to New York City
and back. Our fleet consists of 20 buses.
Our efforts to comply with ADA regulations include, however
are not limited to, establishment of company policy that
complies with ADA regulations, training of all employees to
provide services to the disabled and to budget for the future
purchases of handicapped accessible buses and other needed
equipment to provide such service. At this time, we have one
wheelchair accessible bus that runs daily.
Bus safety and ADA regulatory compliance is a major concern
of Fung Wah. Our experience in maintaining ADA compliance has
been a difficult one. We have identified three issues of
concern.
One, inconsistency in the law. As a bus service provider,
we must comply with many different bodies of law. Some of the
other bodies of law are not consistent with ADA regulations.
How can we comply with inconsistent rules?
If a blind passenger with a service animal comes abh rd a
Fung Wah bus with only window seat available, we are confused
as to where to situate the service animal. DOT rules state that
the aisle must not be obstructed. We cannot separate the blind
passenger and her service animal. We cannot impose on a fellow
passenger to move out of his aisle seat. Furthermore, if we
find a passenger willing to move, again, where do we situate
the service animal?
Second, practical issues with ADA compliance. All Fung Wah
drivers are trained to provide the correct care to our disabled
passengers. Our drivers feel uncomfortable getting disabled
passengers of the opposite sex to and from the restroom. On
busy weekends and the like, a trip to New York City from Boston
might take up to six hours, where one or two trips to the
restroom might be needed. There are many occasions that a
disabled passenger might be dropped off at the bus terminal to
be picked up by another caregiver at the destination. During
that trip, the driver must get that passenger to the restroom.
Three, wheelchair accessible buses are expensive. Fung Wah
is a small company, and having to budget an extra 10 percent or
more for the wheelchair accessible buses has not been easy. The
10 percent increase in price is only for used buses. For new
buses, the price difference gets even greater.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Now we turn to Mr. Wang.
Mr. Wang. Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my
name is Aimin Wang, co-owner and managing director of Eastern
Travel and Tours, Inc. Thank you for inviting me to testify
today on the important topics of Curbside Operator: Bus Safety
and ADA Regulatory Compliance.
Eastern Travel and Tours, Inc. is a minority-owned small
business, incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.
It has been in business as a ch ch carrier of passengers since
2002. Currently, we provide daily bus trips between New York
City and Washington, D.C., and limited service to Rockville,
Maryland and Richmond, Virginia under authority issued by the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, MC-429551.
Here is an overview of the measures we took to ensure the
safety of our passengers. One, bus safety, A, controlled
substance and alcohol use testing. We have a written company
policy about substance abuse and testing. Each driver has a
copy of it. We have pre-employment tests, pre-transfer tests,
random tests, post-accident tests, reasonable suspicion tests,
return to duty test, follow up test.
B, qualification of drivers. This is our ``to-do'' list for
all drivers. Complete application for employment, make
inquiries to previous employers, get a New York State DMV
report through insurance agents or driver. Resubmit a DMV
report if the driver has been employed more than one year. Copy
the driver's medical certificate. Fill out the annual
violations list, if the driver has been employed more than one
year.
Fill out the I-9 immigration form and review proper
identification. Rh d test the driver. If the driver is new to
the company, he must complete the hours of service record to
document all the work in the previous seven days period. Get
the driver to sign a release and contact previous employers to
check on drug and alcohol testing results.
Provide the driver with a copy of our drug and alcohol
testing company policy along with a contact name and phone
number. Send the driver for pre-employment drug test and do not
use the driver until we get the results of the drug test. Check
the driver's CDL to be sure that he or she has the proper
endorsements to drive the bus.
In addition to the above, every driver must be 19A active
under the New York State law.
C, additional safety measures. We have a driver manual and
a written safety policy. In addition, we have ch ch vehicle
accident register, documented safety meetings and a ch ch
vehicle maintenance logs. We also carefully control drivers'
hours of service, and follow 10/60/70 rules.
Number two, ADA regulations. We are committed to protecting
the rights of persons with disabilities. All persons with
disabilities have priority when bh rding the bus. We ensure
that the drivers are trained to properly use lift and
securement devices, properly maintain lift and securement
devices, and assist and treat individuals with disabilities who
use the service in a respectful manner.
In addition, we have a log sheet to record special
disability service requests. It includes customer name,
telephone number and the date the customers made the request.
As a small operator, we do have one ch ch equipped with a
wheelchair lift, and it is running on a daily basis.
As small business owners, we are working hard to run our
business and to comply with the bus safety and ADA regulations.
If there are problems that need fixing, the Government agency
should help us deal with these problems. We do need more help
from the Department of Justice about ADA issues. We do need
more help from the Department of Homeland Security about
terrorist issues. And we do need more help from the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration about safety issues.
And Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, we do
need your help to protect consumers' rights, to prevent the
price of the bus tickets from Washington, D.C. to New York City
from skyrocketing to $45 one way again.
Once again, thank you for inviting me to appear before you
today.
Mr. Petri. Thank you both for your testimony.
We may be interrupted by some bells, and that will mean
that I and other members, Mr. DeFazio will have to go and vote.
But until that time, I would like to ask a few questions.
Do you have an association of curbside bus operators, or
are you each unaffiliated in any way?
Mr. Wang. We are unaffiliated. We tried to, we have an idea
to get a Chinatown bus association, so we can more control all
our Chinatown bus companies, that we can talk to each other,
share safety issues and ADA issues. That is in the planning,
yes.
Mr. Petri. How do you market to the public? Is it through
web sites, or word of mouth or probably a combination of means?
Do you advertise in the newspapers, or post your schedules on
the web?
Mr. Wang. Word of mouth is the most important. And a very
few on the internet. We have very few times to run in the
newspaper. It is all friends telling friends, telling family
members. That is why in the beginning we all would lose money.
Now it is picking up, so more and more people know us now.
Mr. Petri. There are issues which in terms of communicating
with passengers, if you have passengers from a variety of
different communities, the drivers may not be able to
communicate to all the passengers, if the driver does not know
English or if he does not know whatever, the passengers
probably speak a variety of different languages. They will not
all know English, probably.
Mr. Wang. Yes. Most all our drivers speak English, because
not all of my drivers are Chinese. I have some Spanish drivers.
The rule is very clear, it says the driver has to speak enough
English to communicate with the officers and the DOT
inspectors. But what is called enough? Because I know one of my
drivers, one inspector inspected him, said he is okay. Then the
other inspector put him out of service, saying he could not
speak English.
So it is very tough for us to control. What is the standard
that they have to speak English, the standard of spoken
English? It is very, very tough.
Mr. Liang. I think that some drivers are stuttering. The
Chinese stutter, and sometimes the police, especially on the
highway, so they say, oh, you don't speak English.
Mr. Petri. We do have rules, and we argue about them, and
they exist for a good purpose, to help protect the public, and
to make sure that different people with handicaps or with other
problems have access to transportation services.
Do you have any ideas about what we could do that would
help improve compliance with the rules or opportunity for
people to understand the rules, so that we can avoid lawsuits
and putting people out of business and provide good service,
and low cost service, competition is a good thing. But it
should be fair competition. If you are competing by not abiding
by the rules, that is not fair competition.
Mr. Wang. Yes, everybody knows that the rules about the
wheelchair, usually it is 48 hours. For example, the Fung Wah,
we run the bus for the wheelchair. But another company, this is
a bus that used to go down, out of our company, this was
leased, run the other company, the wheelchair is a part of the
schedule, use of the wheelchair.
Mr. Petri. So you are saying, the 48 hours, for a smaller
operator, notice of 48 hours in advance to be using a
wheelchair, people don't understand that and don't give you the
48 hours notice, it is not fair for them to create that--you
are not out of compliance?
Mr. Wang. Yes, but for 48 hours, because we do have a
wheelchair lift on a daily basis. So if people call me in 48
hours, I can switch the schedule to fit the person's schedule.
The answer is, safety is always our top priority. We do not
want to break down a bus on the rh d. From my interest, I want
people safe, no breakdown. If I keep breaking down on the rh d,
nobody is going to take my bus.
If we are safe, it is really a big issue, like a big
company that says, why I have so many customers. The people do
not risk their lives to save $5. Let's say three months ago my
internet sales price, one way from New York to Washington, was
$21. Greyhound is $20. But we didn't lose any customers. My
sales are still going up. Now maybe they increase about $23.
So if anybody just wants to save $2, put their life at
risk? That does not make sense.
Mr. Petri. Well, we thank you very much for being here
today. How many buses do you operate, each of you?
Mr. Wang. My company only owns six buses. All the rest I am
leasing from outside.
Mr. Petri. How many do you lease?
Mr. Wang. About three on the weekends. Friday to Sunday
only.
Mr. Petri. All right, so six to ten buses?
Mr. Wang. Nine total, yes.
Mr. Petri. And you, sir?
Mr. Liang. Twenty.
Mr. Petri. Twenty? All right.
And are most of your interactions with State regulators, or
are you dealing with the Federal most of the time?
Mr. Wang. Both. New York DOT, like in New York State, the
New York DOT inspects us like every six months. We must go to
an inspection facility to inspect your bus every six months.
And also, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety, by random
inspection, last year I said about eight times to ten times,
mostly in Chinatown, New York and in Chinatown, Washington,
D.C.
The person from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, they also come to our office every year to see
all our documents, make sure we are complying with every
regulation. They also, whenever they come, they ask, do you
have a wheelchair lift bus. Every time, they do ask these
questions, yes.
Mr. Petri. Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wang, your company, your driver value under the Federal
system is 74, which means that you basically are very close to
falling into the lowest quartile, if you understand that. You
are skating on the edge here. And a lot of it goes to hours of
service. You have had people who have been violating the rules
by driving too many hours, which is clearly a potential safety
problem, as I mentioned earlier to the Administrator. Most
often, or oftentimes driver fatigue is identified.
What have you done to rectify that problem? Can you assure
us that this is not going to continue?
Mr. Wang. Yes, this driver has issues, because one of my
drivers gets out of service for, he didn't write in the log
book and this driver has been terminated right away. Because we
tell him so many times, hey, you have to keep, when you are on
duty, you have to write in the log book. He says, oh, okay, and
never, and then the last time they found it, he was terminated
right away.
Also, the data is like statistics, you can see, we only
have three drivers that got inspected. Once you have one out,
it affects your score a lot. If I had 1,000 drivers, and have a
couple out, then the score would still be good.
Mr. DeFazio. Right. But it only takes one driver falling
asleep to kill a lot of people.
Mr. Wang. I know. We control, we are very seriously
controlling the hours of service for our drivers. Because we
know if something goes wrong, and if I break the law, then we
have a lot of troubles.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. And then Mr. Liang, you have a failing
score. Your value is 86, meaning 86 percent perform better. You
have an extraordinary number of speeding violations. And then
other safety violations, following too closely, speeding,
improper lane change. This is very disturbing. I think that
people who are riding on your buses would be very disturbed to
know about this.
You also have some duty time violations. What have you done
to rectify these problems? Can you assure us these have been
taken care of?
Mr. Liang. Sir, I have experienced, I have some drivers
talk about their English is not so good. But they know how to
talk to the police. But I just spoke to some of the drivers
about their stuttering, their English is the same. So sometimes
the police, when the police stop the buses, stop the driver,
they want to talk about some of the questions, some of the
reasons. But they are stuttering.
So the police get the summons for the driver. That is the
first thing.
The second thing, in Connecticut, the signs are different.
Example, Connecticut, the 95 in Connecticut, exit 3, this is
the weigh station. But the sign says no bus in the weigh
station, no bus. But the highway, 84 highway, the exit 73 and
74, have that bus, truck, trailer, all commercial.
So when the bus passed the 95 exit, the second and third,
some of the police said, oh, you passed the weigh station. So
they got a summons, the first thing.
The second thing, I have the express, a mini-ch ch. Nobody
knows that. The mini-ch ch is 28 seats. When I drive the mini-
ch ch and 25 people are in the bus. But I go to the weigh
station on 84, in the exits 73 and 74, the exit that is a weigh
station. But I got a summons that it is overweight. Why? Nobody
knows. The police, why, you are overweight, your bus is
overweight. That was recent, I got a ch ch summons.
Last year, around October, I went to the office in
Massachusetts, Boston. I showed them the ticket, ch ch summons.
Last year in October.
Mr. DeFazio. I think just the number and the pattern, there
may be some capability of, you certainly have recourse to the
court systems in those States, and I am not certain whether
these are actually resolved or not, or they were ticketing and
we don't know how they were resolved. Obviously your recourse
is to the judges in those States. But that is a very large
number of speeding violations, particularly in Massachusetts.
My concerns are not assuaged here. But I really don't have
further questions at this point, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. We thank you both for coming and for your
testimony.
We are concerned with making sure that there is fair
enforcement, but that there is also compliance. We are
recognizing that, especially when you are dealing with people
who are not as fluent in English and with some of the
procedures and rules, that it is a management problem for you,
it is an enforcement problem for us. I hope that you possibly,
if you form some curbside operators association, it might help
with communications between the enforcement agencies and your
organizations, to help reduce misunderstandings or unfair
enforcement or unfair competition by your organizations.
We thank you again for preparing the statements that you
have submitted and for your response to the questions today.
Thank you. And this hearing is adjourned.]
[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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