King County Metro strives for continuous improvement, working to enhance standards that increase the safety of our passengers, operators, and the public. Transit is one of the safest forms of travel and we’re committed to doing all we can to get everyone home safely.
On April 19, the King County Auditor presented a performance audit to the King County Council’s Transportation, Economy and Environment (TrEE) Committee. The report included recommendations that would help Metro in the reporting and reviewing of collisions in an effort to reduce the likelihood of collisions and injuries.
Since 2018, Metro Transit buses have traveled over 200 million miles and been involved in 104 preventable incidents with a reported injury. Performance audits like the one presented to the County Council help us focus on areas where we can continue to improve and reaffirms the steps already in place to protect the passengers who ride with us and the vehicles that we share the road with.
Among the six recommendations was expanding our data analysis and response measures. Metro already has a system in place that reviews all incidents but reserves deeper analysis for more serious incidents. Metro follows the best practices of the National Safety Council (NSC) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) when investigating Metro bus incidents and our focus is preventing future accidents
Metro Transit responds to incidents through several measures that include bus maintenance, bus design improvements, and when needed, operator re-training and drug and alcohol programs.
We concur with the audit recommendations and appreciate the thoughtful suggestions on how to improve our data collection and training to become more effective at making our system safer.