[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 224 (Wednesday, November 21, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65636-65638]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-22768]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Transit Administration

[Docket No: FTA-2007-0013]


National Transit Database: Amendments to Safety & Security 
Reporting Manual

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration (FTA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice of Availability of Proposed Amendments to the 2008 
National Transit Database Safety & Security Reporting Manual.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: This notice provides interested parties with the opportunity 
to comment on changes to the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) 
2008 National Transit Database (NTD) Safety & Security Reporting Manual 
(Safety & Security Manual). Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 5335, FTA requires 
those transit agencies that are reporting to the NTD from urbanized 
areas to provide reports within 30 days of a major safety or security 
incident, and to provide a monthly report on minor safety and security 
incidents. In an ongoing effort to improve the NTD reporting system, 
and to be responsive to the needs of NTD data users and of the transit 
agencies reporting to the NTD, FTA annually refines and clarifies the 
Safety & Security Module reporting requirements through revisions to 
the Safety & Security Manual.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before December 21, 2007. FTA 
will consider comments filed after this date to the extent practicable.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments [identified by DOT Docket ID Number 
FTA-2007-0013] at the Federal eRulemaking Portal at: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting 
comments.
    Fax: 202-493-2251.
    Mail: Docket Management Facility: U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., West Building Ground 
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
    Hand Delivery or Courier: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday 
through Friday, except Federal holidays.
    Instructions: When submitting comments you must use docket number 
FTA-2007-0013. This will ensure that your comment is placed in the 
correct docket. If you submit comments by mail, you should submit two 
copies and include the above docket number. Note that all comments 
received will be posted, without change, to http://www.regulations.gov 
including any personal identifying information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For program issues, John D. Giorgis, 
Office of Budget and Policy, (202) 366-5430 (telephone); (202) 366-7989 
(fax); or [email protected] (e-mail). For legal issues, Richard 
Wong, Office of the Chief Counsel, (202) 366-0675 (telephone); (202) 
366-3809 (fax); or [email protected] (e-mail).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    The National Transit Database (NTD) is the Federal Transit 
Administration's (FTA's) primary database for statistics on the transit 
industry. Congress established the NTD to ``help meet the needs of * * 
* the public for information on which to base public transportation 
service planning * * *'' (49 U.S.C 5335).
    Currently, over 650 transit agencies in urbanized areas report to 
the NTD through an Internet-based reporting system. Since 2002, the NTD 
has included an expanded Safety & Security Module in order to meet the 
increased public interest in transit safety and security data. Data 
from the Safety & Security NTD Module are used by FTA's Office of 
Safety and Security, the Department of Homeland Security, the National 
Transportation Safety Board, and in the biennial Conditions and 
Performance Report to Congress. NTD reporters are required to submit a 
report on major incidents to the Safety & Security Module within 30 
days of the

[[Page 65637]]

incident, and to submit a monthly summary report of minor incidents 
within 30 days of the end of the month. FTA is not proposing to change 
these requirements.
    In an ongoing effort to improve the NTD reporting system, and to be 
responsive to the needs of NTD data users and of the transit agencies 
reporting to the NTD, FTA annually refines and clarifies the Safety & 
Security Module reporting requirements through revisions to the Safety 
& Security Manual. This notice provides interested parties with the 
opportunity to comment on changes to the 2008 Safety & Security Manual. 
For purposes of comparison, the 2007 Safety & Security Manual can be 
reviewed on the NTD Web site, http://www.ntdprogram.gov.

II. Proposed Changes in the 2008 Safety & Security Manual

Format Changes

    FTA is overhauling the format of the NTD Safety & Security Module 
by instituting an interactive approach for major incident reporting. 
Instead of completing a static form, reporters will instead receive 
questions on an interactive basis, based on responses provided to the 
initial questions. This will greatly reduce reporting burden, by only 
providing reporters with questions relevant to the major incident 
reported. It will also reduce the number of validation errors, as 
reporters will be less likely to miss questions relevant to the major 
incident being reported, and so leave them blank.
    The ``Non-Major Incident'' form has been renamed the ``Security 
Summary Report Form'' to better reflect the data collected. The form 
has also been redesigned for conciseness and to reduce reporting 
burden.

Eliminated Data Elements

    FTA proposes dropping the requirement to provide the latitude and 
longitude of major incidents, except for ferryboat incidents, where 
such coordinates will still be required. FTA has found that latitude 
and longitude were inconsistently reported in the past, and believes 
that a verbal description of the incident location will provide the 
needed information for major incidents occurring on modes other than 
ferryboat.
    FTA proposes dropping the requirement to provide the time zone in 
which the incident occurred. FTA notes that the time zone of the 
incident can be determined from the incident location in almost all 
cases.

Major Incident Threshold

    FTA proposes to greatly simplify the threshold requirements for 
reporting a major incident. A major incident will now consist of any 
occurrence exceeding one of the following three thresholds:
     One or more fatalities;
     One or more reportable injuries (involving immediate 
medical transportation away from the scene); or
     Total property damage in excess of $25,000.
    Previously, the property damage threshold was $7,500 for certain 
types of collisions. The increased threshold is established to decrease 
reporting burden, and to match the threshold used by FTA's State Safety 
Oversight Program.
    Also, the previous threshold for injuries was one or more injuries 
for occurrences involving rail transit, on a rail right-of-way, or at a 
grade crossing, but the threshold was two or more injuries for all 
other occurrences. Occurrences with only one injury, but not meeting 
the threshold for a major incident, were reported on the monthly minor 
incident summary report form. FTA is establishing a threshold of one 
reportable injury for all occurrences, as it will be much simpler for 
reporters to understand, and in order to support the streamlining of 
the monthly minor incident summary form.
    In addition, the following types of incidents will always 
constitute a major incident, without regard to the preceding 
thresholds:
     A mainline derailment;
     A fire requiring suppression; and
     A hazardous material spill posing an immediate threat to 
life, health, or the environment.
    Previously, all mainline derailments were considered to be major 
incidents, and the new definitions continue to reflect this. FTA is now 
including fires and hazardous material spills as major incidents, but 
is only requiring limited information on the location and cause of the 
incident. Thus, the reporting burden will not be substantially 
increased for those fires and hazardous material spills that were 
previously reported as minor incidents.
    FTA previously also required a major incident report for 
``evacuations due to life safety reasons.'' FTA's experience with 
Safety & Security reporting, however, has indicated that ``evacuations 
due to life safety reasons'' always occur in conjunction with some 
other type of incident. As such, FTA has removed this ``evacuations due 
to life safety reasons'' as a threshold criterion. However, FTA still 
requires transit agencies to report ``evacuations due to life safety 
reasons'' whenever such an evacuation occurs in conjunction with 
another incident.
    Additionally, FTA has eliminated the requirement for reporters to 
distinguish between the ``primary occurrence'' and the ``secondary 
occurrence'' for a major incident. Instead, reporters will simply 
report all data for an incident, without having to make a judgment as 
to what aspects of the incident were ``primary'' or ``secondary.'' This 
was done to reduce the reporting burden.

Definition of Fatalities

    FTA will now consider suicides to be a fatality. This is done to 
reduce the substantial confusion caused by excluding suicides from the 
definition of ``fatalities.'' Additionally, research has indicated that 
many safety practices can reduce the number of suicides, and as such, 
FTA finds it prudent to include suicides in overall safety statistics.

Certification

    FTA has added a standard form for the annual Chief Executive 
Officer (CEO) certification of data reported to the Safety & Security 
Module. This is done to reduce reporting burden on CEOs, and to provide 
a convenient summary of the key safety and security data elements for 
the CEO for review. This will also help the reporting transit agency 
identify any unintended errors or omissions from their Safety & 
Security Module submission.

``Acts of God''

    At the request of several reporting transit agencies, FTA has added 
``Acts of God'' as a causal factor of an occurrence producing 
fatalities, injuries, or more than $25,000 in property damage.

Lighting Conditions

    For reporting on collisions, FTA is requesting transit agencies to 
report on the ``lighting conditions'' of the collision, in particular, 
if there was ``light in the eyes'' of the operator of either the 
transit vehicle or the other vehicle involved in the collision.

Other Changes

    The NTD system now automatically requires the Safety & Security 
Configuration Form (the S&S-30 Form) to be completed prior to 
completing the first monthly report. Previously, reporters could 
provide monthly incident data without completing this Form. This 
automatic control is instituted to reduce the validation burden, as 
reporters will now receive an automatic notice if they attempt to

[[Page 65638]]

provide incident data without having completed the S&S-30 Form.
    Also, FTA has modified the available answers to many of the 
questions from the old Safety & Security forms to reduce unneeded 
answers, and to fill in gaps where the previously provided answers did 
not account for all possible reporting situations. These changes are 
non-substantive in nature, as they do not add any additional reporting 
requirements, but may be found in the full 2008 Safety & Security 
Reporting Manual, available on the NTD Web site at http://www.ntdprogram.gov.

    Issued in Washington, DC, this 15th day of November, 2007.
James S. Simpson,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. E7-22768 Filed 11-20-07; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-57-P