JeffTran developing new safety plan

JeffTran, the Jefferson City Transit Division, is facing a new set of federal safety performance measures, but city officials say it will not have a large impact on operation of the public bus system.

The Federal Transit Administration requires that each public transportation agency in the country develop a Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan to include formal documentation of issues within the system. The performance targets include fatalities, injuries, safety events and system reliability.

JeffTran Director Mark Mehmert said the requirement is probably more beneficial for systems in larger cities such as St. Louis and Kansas City.

For instance, one goal of the measures is to keep track of the age of vehicles and facilities.

JeffTran has 12 large buses - four 2010-11 and the others 2005-06 - with nine routes running daily during the school year.

"We can't really have a big backlog of unrepaired vehicles," he said. "It's not possible for us. When one or two vehicles go down, they have to be fixed because we need that number of vehicles. We're fully aware of what's going on, how old things are, how much wear and tear they have on them and where they are in their useful life cycle."

He said some buses, and the department's facility, are getting toward the end of their life cycle. That's expected to be worked on "fairly quickly," he added.

In terms of fatalities, Mehmert said there has not been one in the six years he's held the position.

The approved measures set a target of zero fatalities, two injuries and 40 safety events per year.

Officials with JeffTran and the Missouri Department of Transportation based the numbers on the last five years of JeffTran data.

"We take safety very seriously," he said. "Part of the reason that we do that is its just part of the responsibility that we have as a public transit agency is to make sure that we're doing things in a safe manner.

"We also don't want to expose the city to any more liability than what was necessary. There's nothing that's risk-free. Running a transit system is not risk-free, but at the same time, as much as we can do to minimize that risk, we have that direction."

In terms of accidents, Mehmert said, the numbers have been dropping every year.

"I attribute that to a good quality training program that we have in place, but also good quality staff," he said.

Mehmert said the department has a safety meeting every month to address issues, which sometimes means letting other city departments know about low hanging tree branches, potholes or signs down.

"These are just run-of-the-mill things that contribute to safety every day," he said.