Westmoreland Transit – National Express Transit

Bus Safety Award Submittal - March 2013

Background

Westmoreland County Transit Authority (WCTA) operates a local and commuter bus transit system consisting of approximately 40 buses in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The transit agency is headquartered in Greensburg, PA. The Authority also supplements neighboring Pittsburgh with commuter bus service to and from downtown Pittsburgh six days a week.

History

The Westmoreland County Transit Authority was formed by the county commissioners in 1978 to combine service that was being provided by a number of private bus companies throughout the county. The original Westmoreland Transit office was located in the Westmoreland County courthouse and was managed by the Planning Department. Later, the Authority moved its office to North Main Street. In 1992, the current office and Transit Center located at 41 Bell Way was opened. The garage facility and operations site is housed in a new transit facility located several miles north of Greensburg at 1823 Business Route 66 Highway. The Operation is staffed, maintained and operated by National Express Transit Services Corporation (National Express).

National Express is a transit-contracting firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio with the company’s world headquarters in London, England. National Express acquiredForsythe Transportation’s contract with Westmoreland Countyin July 2012, which had been in placesince taking over the transit bus service on July 1, 2010. National Express retained the corporate management team from Forsythe to help manage and grow the new National Express transit division.

Westmoreland County Transit put the contract out to bid in 2010 for two primary reasons: the previous contractor was financially unstable and the agency had to take the contract back in-house until another contractor could be found and the agencyhad toovercome poor servicedependability and reliability, which included the transit system’s safe driving performance.

The ridership in Westmoreland County is primarily commuters who ride WCTA for transportation to and from work in Pittsburgh which is approximately one hour from downtown Greensburg. There are also a significant number of local service riders who travel in and around Greensburg and the county. The Westmoreland County Transit system provides routes that operate 6 days a week and 18 hours a day. The annual ridership of the Westmoreland County Transit system at the time National Express / Forsythe took over in 2010 was 447,449 boardings and the ridership at the end of 2012 had increased to 564,478 passenger boardings,which is a 21% increase in ridership in just 2 years. During this time period,threenew commuter routes were added.

Safety / Performance Issuethat was Identified

Before assuming the Westmoreland County Transit contract, local National Express / Forsythe staff and corporate support personnel identified safety issues with the current Operator workforce. These issues were identified through ride check, road observations and our existing bus operator orientation training classes. What we uncovered was that there wereOperators with safety issues observed in their driving; which included aggressive driving, speeding, and the lack of defensive driving concepts application. We used our newly placed and newly trained road supervisor staff to help us identify and address these uncovered driving issues.

Some examples of the problems identified included Operators who drove faster than the 45 mph speed limit on Highways 22 and 30 to and from Pittsburgh, near misses with vehicles while making turns in downtown Pittsburgh, and a lack of consideration for other drivers by not yielding to other traffic in heavily backed-up, stop-and-go traffic.

National Express staff developed a safety action plan for Westmoreland CountyTransit that would target safe driving as well as service improvements with Operators, and impart National Express’ strong behavioral-based safety culture that is led by our division CEO to all members of our transit contracting organization.

Safety Program / Project Effectiveness

Program Goal

The National Express Westmoreland County Transit staff set an aggressive accident reduction goal as part of their safety action plan to reduce losses, provide safer service, and reduce near misses. The staff immediately set an aggressive goal as part of their safety action plan to reduce safety complaints and accidents (typically related to “at risk driving”) in the final six months of 2011 by 25% as compared to 2010 and to further reduce those accident frequency numbers by an additional 20% in 2012 as compared to the results of 2011. To achieve these results would require teaching behavioral based no-risk safety concepts and retraining Operators in our customized Smith System defensive driving program, field-coaching Operators, and improving the effectiveness of our Bus Operator new-hire training program. Westmoreland County Transit’s and National Express’ambitious goals for increased ridership made these safety goals potentially even more challenging.

Award Submittal Program – “Customized Smith System Defensive Driving Training Program”

After identifying safety issues related to driving, all Bus Operators were retrained in our orientation training to National Express’safety culture standards. They were provided with the company’s Safety Culture Guide training and asked to maintain safety performance goals. Operators were also trained in 2011 and again in 2012 with a customizeddefensive driving program entitled “the Smith System Defensive Driving Program,” provided by the Smith System Defensive Driving Institute out of Arlington, Texas. This is an industry leading defensive driving program thatworks for any vehicle and is especially effective in large commercial vehicles such as transit and commuter buses. National Express has further customized the program and extended its teaching length to 8 hours of behind-the-wheel training and supplemented that with classroom instruction. It is this defensive driving-training program, customized and supplemented by National Express’safety program, and the results from the program’s implementation that we are submitting for this bus safety award.

Performance of the Smith System Training Program

To determine the effectiveness of the overall program, we evaluated two years of accidents and near misses to make equitable comparisons. Due to the success of this Defensive Driving Training program, the transit system overall accident rate dropped 31% in 2012. This was a 31% decrease in one year from 2011! When we compared the overall frequency to the results in 2010 before we initiated the training, we saw an additional 14% decrease for a total reduction of 45%! Our preventable accident rate dropped 45% in two years.

Steps taken with the Smith System Program
Before the initiation of the new contract on July 1, 2010, all existing Operators completed 12 hours of training in June 2010 that focused on our behavioral based safety culture with our Smith System defensive driving program in class and company expectations. All newly hired Bus Operators since the contract’s inception have also received this same training in addition to 80 hours of behind-the-wheel training and 24 more hours of classroom training with the customized Smith System classroom and behind-the-wheel portions added. The customized Smith System program behind-the-wheel is 8 hours and includes a final evaluation by their instructor and peer(s).

National Express’Smith System customized program is:

Enthusiastically embraced and accepted by our students

Convinces our operators to adopt safer driving habits and plan in advance while driving

Proven to improve bottom line results

Easy and engaging for both the instructor and the student

Practical to use - every mile, every stop, every day, in all our vehicles, not just our buses. Works in every driving situation for all or our Bus Operators

Another enhancement we added to the program is the requirement of a class-completioncoaching ride by our transit supervisors that helps ensure that the Operators are applying the concepts of the training. This follow-up check ride is conducted within 21 days of the completion of the Smith System Training. If any performance issues are identified in the check ride, retraining in that area is performed by our location safety manager.

Once a training program is taught and made part of an Operator’s procedures, it must be reinforced. At Westmoreland County Transit, that reinforcement occurs as part of the monthly safety meetings that are mandatory for all Operators. Each meeting is one and half hours long, providing an additional 18 hours of structured training each year. For approximately 15 - 20 minutes of each safety meeting, one section of the Smith System Training program curriculum is revisitedby accident analysis or breaking down a recent accident from the location in the prior month. We also periodically show the Smith System’s company videos. Reinforcement every 30 days keeps the material fresh in our Operators’minds.

Safety Program / Project Benefit

After approximately two months of our initial application of the Smith System training with existing operators we started seeing some positive results. We saw less frequent preventable collisions and safety complaints and fewercomplaints about our buses speeding or driving too fast from some of the called-in complaints reported byour passengers. We started seeing more comments from customers who were recognizing our Operators for their good driving skills. Commendations, rather than complaints, were on the rise. In addition, the reduction of preventable accidents was dropping our expenses for repairing buses involved in collisions.

DOT and NTD Reportable Collisions

Savings from the reduction of accidents and the overall elimination of major repairs in preventablebus collisions were especially felt in the major accident category. In 2010 the location incurred four Department of Transportation (DOT) reportable collisions which also met the NTD reporting threshold. In 2011, this dropped to just two DOT-reportable and NTD-reportable collisions and in 2012 the location did not have any accidents or collisions with injuries or major damage to vehicles or property. The Operators had cut collisions with injuries and/or major damages to zero for a 100% reduction in two years’ time!

As indicated in the table below, our biggest indicator of the success of the program beyond the elimination of costly DOT or NTD reportable collisions was the overall reduction of accidents and the improvement of the quality of the ride to our passengers. The overall accident total dropped 45% in the first two years and 31% in 2012. We believe that the Smith System could be attributed to overall reduction of accidents because the Operators were driving more focused on other drivers’ errors and avoiding potential collisions which brought down our total collision numbers.

As mentioned earlier in this report we had two training goals that are listed below:

Training Plan Performance Goals (Smith System Defensive Driving Program)

  1. Reduce accidents by 25% in 2011 as compared to the results of 2010(did not quite obtain, achieved 21%)
  2. Reduce accidents an additional 20% in 2012 as compared to the results of 2010 and 2011(did obtain, achieved 31%)

Achieved Results2010 2011 2012______

Accident totals 33 / 26 / 18 / 45% total decrease
DOT reportable accident totals 4 / 2 / 0 / 100% total decrease
Preventable accident totals 16 / 15 / 9 / 43% total decrease

Program Cost

The cost to certify trainers in the Smith System Training program is very reasonable. The program cost is based on the size of the train-the-trainer class and typically allows us to certify sixcompany trainers for two years at a cost of approximately $7,000 for the week-long class put on by the Smith System company. After successful completion of the training, our trainers were certified to teach the program to our operators. There are no annual fees. The program can be customized and enhanced by the user, which is what National Express did with the program to better fit our needs and to improve the program for our application with transit bus operators.

Safety Program / Project Innovation

Most transit agencies and private transit contractors have a defensive driving program that they teach to their Bus Operators. What makes our Smith System Customized Program unique is the way we teach and deliver the program. After completing classroom instruction that involves the students understanding and application of the Smith System Five Keys, the instructor translates the material to the bus operator while they are behind-the-wheel. After completion of the initial drive, they are coached in Smith System concepts. The next step is for operators to provide commentary and tell the trainer and other students what they are seeing and what they are doing based on what is happening around them in their driving environment.

There are 30 basic concepts applied to each Operator that are tied-in to the Five Keys of Space Cushion Driving of the Smith System. Our extended version of this program requires the Operators’ peers to evaluate them along with the instructor. While not driving and in the class, each Operator must complete an evaluation on his or her fellow employee who is driving. This helps foster each Operator’s buy-in to the program because they are still activelyengaged in the training, even while not driving. Typical instruction is provided for two to four students with one instructor. After completing the behind-the-wheel instruction phase of the training the Operator must complete additional Smith System training simulating running their route. When they have completed the training they are later checked with a ride check by our instructors within 21 days to ensure theircompliance with the program. Additionally, they are monitored out in the field with road observations to check to ensure their defensive driving habits and any customer complaints related to aggressive or at-risk behaviors require retraining.

For transit systems, safe vehicle operation is an expectation and a requirement.With the Smith System defensive driving program, safe vehicle operation is a reality. Operators once having practiced these defensive driving habits for three weeks in the bus and in their own personal vehicles become a much better Operator and learn to drive for others. After completion of the training, most Operators will provide a smoother and safer ride and help our mechanics by reducing the amount of bus brake replacements and transmission wear. Another benefit is improved fuel consumption. While fuel use was not evaluatedfor this report, our maintenance team believesthat our bus Operators are driving more efficiently and taking better care of the vehicles than they were two years ago.

Safety Program / Project Transferability

All transit systems must monitor and address safety issues. Our Operators provide unique challenges as it relates to safe driving because they are working in an environment they control as the “captain of their ship” that for the most part is unmonitored by staff. To ensure we arm our Operators with the tools they need to succeed while driving in today’s hostile, distracted driving environment, the Smith System defensive driving program provides them with three important outcomes while driving: space for the vehicle, time for the Operator to make decisions, and improved visibility for the Operator.

Because this program is available to any transit user at a reasonable cost, other agencies can obtain similar results. In order to achieve good results you must continually provide guidance, follow-up, and direction through your supervisory staffs and keep training the concepts in safety meetings on a monthly or quarterly basis. There must be constant monitoring and measuring your results in the field with check rides, road observations and Operator/customer observations.

As a final comment, the Smith System Training program is very easy for trainers to teach and most importantly, for the adult Operator learner to remember and apply the concepts.

1