RAIL TRANSIT STATE SAFETY OVERSIGHT (SSO) PROGRAM 2019 ANNUAL PROGRAM STATUS REPORT Calendar Year 2019 As of December 31, 2019 ODOT SSO 2019 Program Status Report Introduction This 2019 Annual Program Status Report highlights activities and accomplishments from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) Rail Transit State Safety Oversight (SSO) program, focused on calendar year 2019. This annual report is required by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) SSO Rule, 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 674.13(a)(7): At least once a year, the SSOA [state safety oversight agency] reports the status of the safety of each rail fixed guideway public transportation system to the Governor, the FTA, and the board of directors, or equivalent entity, of the rail fixed guideway public transportation system. The Ohio rail transit agencies (RTAs) included in this SSO program are the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) – heavy and light rail systems, and the City of Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) – the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar system. In Ohio, the designated state safety oversight agency (SSOA) is the ODOT Office of Transit. This office provides financial and technical assistance to public transit systems, local governments, and human service agencies throughout the state for the planning, establishment, and operation of those public transit systems. The ODOT SSO program has provided safety oversight for GCRTA since the beginning of the program (1996) and now for the Cincinnati Bell Connector Streetcar since 2012. FTA’s New Safety Program Updates The SSO program regulation (49 CFR Part 674) became effective April 15, 2016 and each of the 31 state programs was required to be Certified by FTA as compliant within three years or by April 15, 2019. The Ohio SSO program was the first state Certified in August 2017. The last three SSO programs were Certified in February and March 2019 prior to the deadline. If any of the state programs had not been Certified by the deadline, FTA would have been required to discontinue all transit grant funding for that state until the program was Certified. The Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) regulation (49 CFR Part 673) was finalized in July 2018 with a requirement that all applicable transit agencies be required to complete development of their Agency Safety Plans and all approvals (Accountable Executive approval, Board of Directors or equivalent approval, and SSO program approval, if an RTA) no later than July 20, 2020. FTA started providing a significant number of guidance documents starting with their SSO Program Workshop in Washington, DC during September 2019. At about the same time, FTA added their PTASP Technical Assistance Center website making these guidance documents available and the ability to contact FTA for review and guidance of PTASP documents being developed. FTA also completed several webinars that are also available on the website. • https://www.transit.dot.gov/PTASP-TAC The ODOT SSO program has worked with both Ohio RTAs to assure that their PTASPs are in development and making progress towards the deadline. The GCRTA PTASP was completed and approved in early 2020. The Cincinnati Streetcar PTASP has been developed and approved as an interim PTASP awaiting required approvals prior to the regulatory deadline. 2 ODOT SSO 2019 Program Status Report ODOT SSO Program Standard Update The ODOT SSO Program Standard was updated to Version 5.0 with all signatures completed in February 2019 and then a minor update in December 2019 based on discussions during the FTA audit (http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Planning/Transit/Pages/RailSafety.aspx). The February 2019 set of updates was focused on changes based on being Certified to the new SSO regulation (49 CFR Part 674). The December 2019 update was focused on a minor change in Section 8. Corrective Action Plans (CAPs). Another full version update is planned in 2020 to add the PTASP and safety management system (SMS) requirements based on guidance now available from FTA on their PTASP TAC website. FTA Audit of the ODOT SSO Program The ODOT SSO program was notified via letter by the FTA on October 18, 2019 of an upcoming three- year or triennial audit, with the on-site activities planned for December 17-19, 2019. As part of the letter, a number of documents and records were requested to be provided within 20 business days, and this was completed on time. The on-site portion of this audit was completed with one day in Columbus at ODOT and a day and a half in Cleveland at GCRTA. The next steps for this activity include receiving the draft audit report for comment and then the final report. After the final report, any findings and recommendations are to be developed into corrective actions for approval by FTA. This is expected to be completed in early to mid-2020. Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) The ODOT SSO program provides safety oversight for the GCRTA (www.riderta.com) heavy and light rail systems shown in Figure 1, which include 37 miles of double track and catenary power system. Figure 1 also shows GCRTA’s three bus rapid transit (BRT) lines, but the bus operations are not a part of the SSO program. Figure 2 shows one of the light rail vehicles in Tower City. Significant changes in management at GCRTA have occurred in 2019. The long-time Chief Executive Officer retired and left the organization. In addition, the Safety Director left and was replaced with the long-time Safety Manager. The current safety program related management staff are the following: • Ms. India Birdsong, General Manager and CEO (Accountable Executive) • Dr. Floun’say Caver, Chief Operating Officer, and Interim Secretary-Treasurer • Ms. Sheryl King Benford, General Counsel, Deputy General Manager, Legal Affairs and Chief Safety Officer • Mr. Anthony Garofoli, Executive Director, Internal Audit • Mr. Michael Schipper, Deputy General Manager, Engineering & Project Management • Mr. Steven Peganoff, Director, Safety • Mr. Sean Thompson, Director, Rail District • Chief John Joyce, Transit Police • Mr. Anthony Richardson, Acting Director Service Quality 3 ODOT SSO 2019 Program Status Report Figure 1. GCRTA Heavy and Light Rail Systems 4 ODOT SSO 2019 Program Status Report Figure 2. Light Rail System in Tower City Communications with GCRTA occur daily with email or phone calls, usually with the Safety Department. GCRTA provides monthly status reports for all investigations, internal audits, and corrective actions. In addition, the ODOT SSO program and GCRTA have quarterly meetings at GCRTA with executive and department management staff to go over status of corrective actions and to share presentations about current safety related activities for the ODOT SSO program. Quarterly meetings for 2019 occurred on January 23rd, April 4th, August 9th, and October 24th. Along with ODOT SSO program staff, Mr. Peganoff attended the FTA joint State Safety Oversight and Rail Transit Agency Workshop in Washington D.C. on September 23-26, 2019. GCRTA and the ODOT SSO program have actively worked together completing investigations and internal audits, using these as an opportunity to enhance safety capabilities related to the rail systems. As shown in Figure 3, the number of reportable event investigations over the last thirteen years have been steady at an average of 15 per year, except in 2017 and 2018. The ODOT SSO program has started to require additional, less severe, safety events that were already being investigated to also be included in the ODOT SSO program. Note the significant increase of ODOT reportable events starting in 2012 is a part of the new requirements for the enhanced SSO program. It is our position that the focus and attention on the less severe safety events has driven down the number of the more severe/significant safety events. With the Certification of the ODOT SSO program in August 2017, the FTA reportable safety event criteria and thresholds changed in calendar year 2018 to the new SSO Rule. 5 ODOT SSO 2019 Program Status Report 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 FTA Reportable ODOT Reportable Figure 3. Number of FTA and ODOT Required Investigations by Year The ODOT SSO program assigns GCRTA to complete these investigations, and the ODOT SSO program adopts and approves all the investigations and corrective action plans (CAPs). The ODOT SSO program staff carefully and independently review the investigations (the new regulation includes requirements for a review for sufficiency, thoroughness, and agreement with findings of causation) and CAPs to assess whether or not all of the causes and contributing factors for the events were fully investigated and appropriately mitigated/controlled. Any changes needed are discussed and negotiated between the ODOT SSO program and GCRTA staff. During 2019, the ODOT SSO program added a more formal process of responding to CAP closure evidence through a form/record of acceptance of the CAP closure evidence. Figure 4 shows all CAPs from investigations, internal audits, and ODOT SSO program Triennial Reviews at GCRTA during the thirteen-year period. All of these CAPs have been approved by and included in the ODOT SSO program. The CAPs represent action items to improve safety performance on the rail system including training, additional maintenance, or adding new/improving existing capabilities. Over the thirteen-year period, the number of total CAPs averages 125 CAPs per year, except for the much lower number of CAPs in 2017 and 2018. GCRTA’s internal audits are coordinated with the ODOT SSO program and GCRTA’s Safety and Internal Audit Departments. Each year, approximately one-third of the system safety program plan (SSPP) elements and system security plan (SSP) sections are audited in order to cover the entire safety program over a three-year period, as required.