The Federal Transit Administration will require public transportation agencies nationwide to assess and mitigate safety risks for its workers, the agency announced Wednesday.

The FTA's first-ever general directive was issued hours after a bus in Los Angeles was hijacked, resulting in the death of a passenger who had been shot multiple times.

What You Need To Know

  • The Federal Transit Administration issued its first-ever general directive Wednesday requiring public transportation agencies to assess the risks for potential assaults on their transit workers and mitigate those risks

  • It also requires the agencies to monitor the results and report them to the FTA within 90 days

  • The FTA says it will use the risk assessments to inform future actions

“This tragic incident underscores part of why we’re making this announcement today,” U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg said in a press call about the new rule. “Over the past decade, we have seen a truly tragic and unacceptable rise in verbal and physical assaults on the men and women who are critical in providing a transportation lifeline to tens of millions of people.”

Between 2013 and 2021, assaults on transit operators increased 120%, according to the DOT. Since 2021, the number of transit worker fatalities and injuries doubled again, Trottenberg said.

“It’s unacceptable that so many of them fear for their safeties or even their lives just going to work,” she added.

Under the new rule, the FTA will not only require 700 of the largest transit agencies in the United States to assess the risk of potential assaults on transit workers and to mitigate those risks, they will need to monitor the results of those actions and report them to the agency within 90 days.

“The information collected from the general directive will help FTA understand how safety risk assessments and safety risk mitigations for assaults on transit workers vary throughout the industry and will inform further FTA activities that may be effective in reducing the risk of assaults on transit workers.” FTA Deputy Administrator Veronica Vanterpool said during the briefing.

Currently, transit agencies are required to report assaults on their systems to the National Transit Database. Under the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the definition of assaults on transit workers was expanded to include verbal assaults, as well as those that resulted in injuries and fatalities.

“In the coming years, we’ll have a much fuller picture of the assaults and use that data to understand how the problem is improving and what other steps to take,” Vanterpool said.