By Grantley Martelly, Metro Transit Managing Director of Safety and Security
Metro Transit’s track record for safely operating service is among the best in the country – and an ongoing focus of everyone at the organization, from drivers to mechanics to managers.
That’s essential. We’re a transit agency that traveled about 44 million miles last year, carrying more than 121 million riders. We do that through congested streets and highways – and are mindful of more pedestrians each year.
Drivers must always be vigilant to operate our buses safely.
For all the millions of people served and millions of miles traveled, Metro experiences about two dozen pedestrian collisions each year, ranging from people running into the side of our moving buses to more serious collisions while turning in an intersection.
Metro cares about its customers, its drivers, pedestrians and the public it serves. That’s why Metro is focused on training operators to operate safely. We also are implementing a comprehensive safety review, funded by savings we achieved by reducing collisions in past years.
In February and April this year we recorded zero pedestrian collisions, and our year to date total is four collisions – much lower than 10 we had in the same time period in 2016.
It’s good news, but not really a cause for celebration – each new day brings with it challenges and our 2,700 operators must always take great care to travel safely on our roads.
We check with customers regularly to make sure we are meeting their expectations, and strive to improve where we are not. We ask customers how safe they feel with how our drivers are driving, and 95% reported they are satisfied – 76% of which are very satisfied.
Based on 2015 reports to the National Transit Database, we rank sixth in the country among the 30 largest transit operators based on all collisions per miles traveled.
Each collision has the potential for serious injury and represents the highest and most costly risk as we operate transit service. When these rare collisions occur, we investigate, make corrections and sometimes are responsible for settlements to cover the injuries received by a pedestrian.
Working with King County Risk Management, Metro addresses claims and lawsuits deriving from incidents involving our transit system. The outcomes vary depending on many factors.
Our goal is zero collisions, zero incidents, and our work is focused on achieving that.