Metro News Release

For immediate release: June 10, 2010

Metro outlines latest progress taken on safety to Board committee

Actions underway to improve customer, employee safety

Metro’s staff updated the Metro Board’s Customer Service, Operations and Safety Committee today (June 10) on several safety actions that the agency has implemented during the past several months.

Metro Interim General Manager Richard Sarles has made addressing safety and service reliability his top priorities, and Metro’s staff has developed and implemented several new safety initiatives.

During the past six months, Metro has closed 50 safety-related corrective action plans (CAPs) that were recommended to improve overall safety by federal/state audits. The number represents about one third of the open CAPs, including 15 recommendations from the Federal Transit Authority’s March audit.

Several major Metro safety initiatives have recently been completed in the past few months. Actions taken include:

• Received approval to purchase 428 new-generation railcars (Series 7000) to replace Metro’s oldest cars (Series 1000) with improved crash-worthiness
• Kicked off a comprehensive employee safety survey this week that will assess the safety environment and specific safety concerns, to assist with improving the safety culture
• Selected qualified candidates to fill nine of 12 new positions in the Safety Department
• Wrote a new track worker safety manual, known as the Roadway Worker Protection manual.
• Safety personnel completed one of six advanced safety courses through the Transportation Safety Institute, with the remaining courses to be completed in the coming months
• Continued development of a real-time automatic train control redundancy system
• Began creation of a new accident and investigation database
• Started building an internal training tracking database

Metro personnel also began working with the Tri-state Oversight Committee on a three-week comprehensive review of Metro’s safety and security. Among other things, the evaluation will focus on operations, facilities, field observations and system safety.

A copy of the safety report presented to the committee is on Metro’s website.

News release issued at 3:08 pm, June 10, 2010.