[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 135 (Friday, July 15, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 42539-42543]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-15167]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Transit Administration

[FTA Docket No. FTA-2022-0020]


National Transit Database Safety and Security Reporting Changes 
and Clarifications

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration, United States Department of 
Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: This notice provides information on proposed changes and 
clarifications to the National Transit Database (NTD) Safety and 
Security (S&S) reporting requirements. Some of the proposed NTD changes 
would take place during the NTD report year (RY) 2023, which 
corresponds to an agency's fiscal year, while other changes will take 
place during calendar year (CY) 2023.

DATES: Comments are due by September 13, 2022. The Federal Transit 
Administration (FTA) will consider late comments to the extent 
practicable.

ADDRESSES: You may file comments identified by docket number FTA-2022-
0020 by any of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for submitting 
comments.
     Mail: Send comments to 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 Ave. SE, between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. ET, 
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
     Fax: Fax comments to Docket Management Facility, U.S. 
Department of Transportation, at (202) 493-2251.
    Instructions: You must include the agency name (Federal Transit 
Administration) and Docket Number (FTA-2022-0020) for this notice, at 
the beginning of your comments. If sent by mail, submit two copies of 
your comments.
    Electronic Access and Filing: This document and all comments 
received may be viewed online through the Federal eRulemaking portal at 
http://www.regulations.gov or at the street address listed above. 
Electronic submission, retrieval help, and guidelines are available on 
the Federal eRulemaking portal website. The website is available 24 
hours each day,

[[Page 42540]]

365 days a year. Please follow the instructions. An electronic copy of 
this document may also be downloaded from the Office of the Federal 
Register's home page at https://www.federalregister.gov.
    Privacy Act: Except as provided below, all comments received into 
the docket will be made public in their entirety. The comments will be 
searchable by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or 
signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, 
business, labor union, etc.). You should not include information in 
your comment that you do not want to be made public. You may review 
DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published 
on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477) or at https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Thomas Coleman, National Transit 
Database Program Manager, FTA Office of Budget and Policy, (202) 366-
5333, [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Table of Contents

A. Background and Overview
B. Assaults on a Transit Worker
C. Fatalities That Result From an Impact With a Bus

A. Background and Overview

    The National Transit Database (NTD) was established by Congress to 
be the Nation's primary source for information and statistics on the 
transit systems of the United States. Recipients and beneficiaries of 
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grants under either the Urbanized 
Area Formula Program (49 U.S.C. 5307) or Rural Area Formula Program (49 
U.S.C. 5311) are required by law to report to the NTD. FTA grantees 
that own, operate, or manage transit capital assets are required to 
provide more limited reports to the NTD regarding Transit Asset 
Management.
    Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 5334(k), FTA is seeking public comment on 
proposed NTD S&S reporting changes and clarifications. These proposals 
implement changes to Federal transportation law made by the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law, enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act (Pub. L. 117-58). FTA is proposing changes and clarifications on 
two topics: (1) assaults on a transit worker; and (2) fatalities that 
result from an impact with a bus. FTA seeks comments on the proposed 
changes and clarifications described below. The information below 
describes anticipated reporting impacts from each change or 
clarification, as well as the proposed effective date of each change. 
All impacts or changes described below are proposed and subject to 
finalization in a future notice.

B. Assaults on a Transit Worker

1. Definitions

    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law amended 49 U.S.C. 5335(c) to 
require that recipients of a grant under Chapter 53 submit to the NTD 
``any data on assaults on transit workers of the recipients.'' The 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law amended 49 U.S.C. 5302(1) to define 
``assault on a transit worker:''

    [A] circumstance in which an individual knowingly, without 
lawful authority or permission, and with intent to endanger the 
safety of any individual, or with a reckless disregard for the 
safety of human life, interferes with, disables, or incapacitates a 
transit worker while the transit worker is performing the duties of 
the transit worker.

    FTA will incorporate this definition into NTD reporting without 
change. Because FTA is adopting the statutory language verbatim, FTA is 
not seeking comment on the definition of ``assault on a transit 
worker.'' FTA is proposing to define ``transit worker'' as: ``any 
employee, contractor, or volunteer working on behalf of the transit 
agency.''
    To maintain consistency between this definition and the statutory 
definition of ``assault on a transit worker,'' FTA proposes to amend 
the definition of ``assault'' to: ``an attack by one person on another 
without lawful authority or permission.'' This will represent a change 
for the NTD program. Currently, the NTD Safety and Security Policy 
Manual defines ``assault'' as an ``unlawful attack by one person upon 
another'' for the ``Major Event Report'' (S&S-40) form.

2. Proposed Collections

    Section 49 U.S.C. 5335(c) applies to ``each recipient of a grant'' 
under Chapter 53. Within this scope, FTA identified three different 
affected reporting groups: (1) full reporters; (2) reduced, tribal, and 
rural reporters; and (3) capital asset-only reporters. FTA proposes 
different ways to collect this data, depending on the reporter type as 
described below.
Full Reporters
    FTA proposes that full reporters to the NTD report all assaults on 
transit workers on either the S&S-40 or S&S-50 (``Non-Major Summary 
Report'') forms. The S&S-40 captures safety and security ``major 
event'' reports such as fatalities. The S&S-50 collects monthly counts 
from full reporters related to `non-major' events. An assault on a 
transit worker is already required to be reported on the S&S-40 form if 
it meets one of the FTA's major event reporting thresholds listed in 
the NTD safety and security manual.\1\
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    \1\ https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2022-02/2022%20Safety%20and%20Security%20Policy%20Manual%20Version%201.0_0.pdf.
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    The S&S-40 form is detailed, requiring one unique report per event. 
FTA proposes adding two new questions on the S&S-40 if the event is an 
assault or a homicide. The first proposed question asks reporters to 
identify whether assault or homicide events were against operators, 
other transit workers, or someone else. If the first question indicates 
an assault against an operator or other transit worker occurred, a 
second proposed question asks whether the assault was physical or non-
physical, which are defined as follows:
     Physical Assault on a Transit Worker: An assault in which 
the attack involves physical contact with the transit worker. This 
could include any physical contact with the victim from the attacker's 
body, a weapon, a projectile, or other item.
     Non-Physical Assault on a Transit Worker: An assault in 
which the attack involves no physical contact with the transit worker. 
This could include threats or intimidation that did not result in any 
physical contact with the transit worker.
    FTA proposes to require that any assault on a transit worker that 
is not reported on the S&S-40 must be reported on the S&S-50 form. 
Currently, the S&S-50 does not identify which non-major events involved 
assaults. FTA proposes to add a four-by-four matrix with sixteen fields 
to the S&S-50 to collect counts related to assaults on a transit 
worker. The matrix will ask for counts to be distinguished based on 
whether the assaults were physical or non-physical, whether they were 
assaults on operators or on other transit workers, and whether the 
assaults occurred in a transit vehicle, a revenue facility, a non-
revenue facility, or some other location.

[[Page 42541]]

    The following table identifies the 16 proposed S&S-50 questions:

                                              New S&S-50 Questions
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                                                                          Provide a count of  Provide a count of
                                  Provide a count of  Provide a count of       non-major         non-major non-
        Location of event              non-major         non-major non-   physical  assaults  physical  assaults
                                  physical  assaults  physical  assaults   on other transit    on other transit
                                     on operators        on operators           workers             workers
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In transit vehicle..............
In revenue facility.............
In non-revenue facility.........
Other...........................
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    FTA considered proposing an alternative reporting option for full 
reporters where any assault on a transit worker would require an S&S-40 
report. This alternative would have created an additional major event 
reporting threshold for the S&S-40. Under this alternative, no assaults 
on transit workers would be reportable on the S&S-50, even if no other 
major event reporting threshold was met. FTA did not select this 
alternative as FTA believes it would be substantially more burdensome 
on agencies because the S&S-40 report requires one report per event, 
while the S&S-50 requires only a monthly summary tally. FTA proposes 
that reporting for transit worker assault data on the S&S-40 and S&S-50 
begin in calendar year 2023 as soon as practicable following 
publication of the Federal Register notice finalizing the NTD reporting 
changes.
Reduced Reporters, Tribal Reporters, and Rural Reporters
    FTA proposes that reduced, tribal, and rural reporters must begin 
reporting assaults on transit workers on a new annual form (S&S-60). 
Reduced and rural reporter types already report safety data on the RR-
20 form.
    At present, the NTD asks three safety questions on the RR-20 form: 
total fatalities from the prior year, total injuries from the prior 
year, and total events from the prior year. FTA proposes to remove 
these questions from the RR-20 form and transfer them to the new S&S-60 
form. Additionally, FTA proposes asking these reporters to report 
transit worker assault data using matrix format. Mock-ups of a matrix 
for physical and non-physical assaults are shown below:

                                              New S&S-60 Questions
                                               [Physical assaults]
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                                                       Physical assaults   Physical assaults
                                   Physical assaults      in revenue        in non-revenue     Physical assaults
                                  in transit vehicle       facility            facility        in other location
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                                               Total Event Counts
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Major Safety and Security Events
Non-Major Events (non-injury)...
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                                                  Injury Counts
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Operator Injuries...............
Other Transit Worker Injuries...
Other Injuries..................
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                                                 Fatality Counts
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Operator Fatalities.............
Other Transit Worker Fatalities.
Other Fatalities................
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                                              New S&S-60 Questions
                                             [Non-physical assaults]
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                                     Non-physical        Non-physical        Non-physical        Non-physical
                                      assaults in         assaults in      assaults in  non-  assaults in  other
                                    transit vehicle    revenue facility    revenue facility        location
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                                               Total Event Counts
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Safety and Security Events
Non-Major Events (non-injury)...
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[[Page 42542]]

 
                                                  Injury Counts
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Operator Injuries...............
Other Transit Worker Injuries...
Other Injuries..................
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                                                 Fatality Counts
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Operator Fatalities.............
Other Transit Worker Fatalities.
Other Fatalities................
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    The proposed S&S-60 form will collect data that is similar to the 
data captured from full reporters on both the S&S-40 and S&S-50 forms. 
This would facilitate consistent data collection from all reporters. 
The proposed S&S-60 questions are intended to provide annual counts of 
where transit worker assaults occurred, whether assaults were against 
operators or other transit workers, whether the assaults were physical 
or non-physical, whether the events were major or non-major (consistent 
with the S&S-40 and S&S-50 definitions), and counts of affected person-
type(s). FTA proposes that reporting for transit worker assault data on 
the S&S-60 begin in RY 2023.
    FTA considered two alternative reporting options for reduced, 
tribal, and rural reporters. FTA considered an option that would 
require an S&S-40 report for any assault on a transit worker. FTA did 
not select this approach as it FTA believes it would be substantially 
more burdensome on agencies as the S&S-40 report requires one report 
per event, while the S&S-60 is a monthly summary tally.
    FTA also considered an option where the S&S-60 would only ask for a 
total tally of all annual transit worker assaults as opposed to the 
counts of transit worker assaults by location, major vs. non-major 
assault, etc. FTA did not select this proposal as it would not make the 
data useful to understand risk trends. For instance, risk trends change 
by location--transit worker assaults rates may be higher in revenue 
vehicles as opposed to in revenue facilities, and understanding this 
data is critical to identifying potential mitigations. Thus, it was 
determined collecting only a total tally of all annual transit worker 
assaults would not provide useful data.
Capital Asset-Only Reporters
    FTA proposes that capital asset-only reporters must begin reporting 
assaults on transit workers on a new annual form (S&S-60). The S&S-60 
is shown above, and asks for annual counts of transit worker assaults 
across two different matrixes. FTA considered, but did not select, two 
alternative reporting options for capital asset-only reporters. The 
first alternative would have required these reporters to report any 
assault on a transit worker on the S&S-40 form. FTA did not select this 
approach as it was determined it would be substantially more burdensome 
on agencies as the S&S-40 report requires one report per event, while 
the S&S-60 is a monthly summary tally.
    FTA also considered an option where the S&S-60 would ask for a 
single total tally of all transit worker assaults as opposed to 
collecting the counts of transit worker assaults by location, major vs. 
non-major assault, etc. FTA did not select this proposal as it would 
not make the data useful to understand risk trends. For instance, risk 
trends change by location--transit worker assaults rates may be higher 
in revenue vehicles as opposed to in revenue facilities, and 
understanding this data is critical to identifying potential 
mitigations. Thus, it was determined collecting only a total tally of 
all annual transit worker assaults would not provide useful data.

C. Fatalities That Result From an Impact With a Bus

    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also amended 49 U.S.C. 5335(c) to 
require ``each recipient of a grant'' under Chapter 53 to report ``any 
data on fatalities that result from an impact with a bus.'' Within this 
scope, FTA identified three different affected reporting groups: (1) 
full reporters; (2) reduced, tribal, and rural reporters; and (3) 
capital asset-only reporters. FTA proposes different ways to collect 
this data, depending on the reporter type as described below.

Full Reporters

    Full NTD reporters already report all fatalities that result from 
an impact with a bus to the NTD because all events that result in a 
fatality, including those from an impact (or ``collision'') with a bus, 
must be reported on the S&S-40 form.\2\ Nevertheless, FTA welcomes 
comments on whether the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law otherwise affects 
reporting for full reporters.
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    \2\ The NTD Safety and Security Policy Manual also defines 
collision as ``an accident in which there is an impact of a transit 
vehicle or vessel with another vehicle or object.''
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Reduced Reporters, Tribal Reporters, and Rural Reporters

    Because 49 U.S.C. 5335(c) applies to all Chapter 53 recipients, FTA 
proposes to collect bus fatality collision data from rural, reduced, 
and tribal reporters on the new S&S-60 form. The RR-20 form currently 
collects summary annual fatality data from these reporters. However, 
the form combines fatality counts of all types, making fatalities that 
result from an impact with a bus indistinguishable from other 
fatalities. The RR-20 also does not distinguish major events from non-
major events.
    As discussed above, FTA is proposing to remove the safety-related 
questions from the RR-20 form and add them to the new S&S-60 form. FTA 
is proposing to add eleven questions on a matrix in the S&S-60. The 
proposed form will delineate collisions with pedestrians and vehicles, 
as well as major from non-major events. FTA proposes that these changes 
take effect in RY 2023. The proposed matrix is shown below:

[[Page 42543]]



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              Event type                     Major events              Fatalities                Injuries
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Collisions with Pedestrian(s)........
Collisions with Vehicle(s)...........
Collisions with Other (e.g., animal,
 manhole, shopping cart, etc.).
Other Major Events...................
Total reportable injuries from non-    Not Applicable.          Not Applicable.
 major events.
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    FTA also considered an alternative reporting option for reduced, 
tribal, and rural reporters where all fatalities that result from an 
impact with a bus would require an S&S-40 report. FTA did not select 
this approach as FTA believes it would be substantially more burdensome 
on agencies as the S&S-40 report requires a report per event, while the 
S&S-60 is a monthly summary tally.

Capital Asset-Only Reporters

    FTA proposes that capital asset-only reporters must begin reporting 
data on fatalities that result from an impact with a bus on a new 
annual form (S&S-60). The S&S-60, which will replace the major event, 
fatality, and injury questions on the RR-20, currently does not apply 
to capital asset-only reporters. The relevant section of the S&S-60 is 
shown above, and asks for counts of major events, fatalities, and 
injuries.
    FTA also considered an alternative reporting option for capital 
asset-only reporters where any fatality that resulted from an impact 
with a bus would require an S&S-40 report. FTA did not select this 
approach as FTA believes it would be substantially more burdensome on 
agencies as the S&S-40 report requires a report per event, while the 
S&S-60 is a monthly summary tally.

Nuria I. Fernandez,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2022-15167 Filed 7-14-22; 8:45 am]
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