Goal 1: Build and Maintain a Premier Safety Culture and System

July 4th, 2013

Metro will create a safer and more secureDupont-Circle-escalator-062812-144 transit experience for customers and employees.

Metro customers and employees deserve and expect a safe environment – on the job, in the buses, on the trains and in the stations and shelters. Our commitment: A Metro ride is a safe ride. In 2011, eighty employees were recognized as Champions of Safety for their efforts in safeguarding Metro employees, equipment and customers. More than eighty-five percent of both Metrobus and Metrorail riders are highly satisfied with security.

Keep safety Metro’s first priority

Metro will continue its efforts to return to and keep the system equipment and infrastructure in good condition. Metro will use data-driven and science-based methods to allocate resources, use system safety practices and principles and environmental design to enhance safety, and seek to meet or exceed national safety and security standards for transit.

Priority strategic actions underway include:

  • Continue to complete all National Transportation Safety Board recommendations
  • Sustain efforts to maintain a high-reliability organization for decades to come

New priority strategic actions include:

  • Set standards for police force based on national best practices

Create a shared climate of safety

Metro will work with employees, riders, jurisdictional partners, and the general public to make sure that everyone does their part in creating and sustaining a culture of safety and security in stations, vehicles, support facilities, and access points. Metro will enhance its communications feedback loops to bring critical safety information to empowered agents quickly, to prevent accidents before they happen.

Priority strategic actions underway include:

  • Continue to inform customers on safe boarding and riding practices
  • Strengthen partnerships with schools to combat youth crime
  • Continue to expand Safety Measurement System
  • Fully implement all aspects of the close call program
  • Embrace health and wellness, especially with respect to fatigue management, to ensure top-notch employee performance
  • Continue to enhance employee safety training throughout the organization

New priority strategic actions include:

  • Enhance the cooperative agreement with jurisdictional police to support Metro
  • Mitigate crime through environmental design

Expect the unexpected

Metro will continue to support the region’s emergency transit management and security readiness protocols and seek to make transit emergency protocols widely- and easily-understood.  Metro will maintain regional evacuation capability and prepare for any event that requires wide-scale response. On a smaller scale, Metro will continue to improve incident response timing, planning, preparation and investigation.

Priority strategic actions underway include:

  • Train staff to accelerate incident investigations
  • Work to enhance the region’s emergency transit management protocols
  • Continue to harden the system to protect against a man-made emergency
  • Pursue system-wide technologies that enhance system security and safety
  • Continue to educate the customer about transit coverage and usage in regional emergencies

New priority strategic actions include:

  • Enhance emergency transit availability language for mass communication providers
  • Expand continuous feedback loops to prevent accidents before they happen
  • Implement emergency evacuation procedures for people with disabilities

Prepare for extreme weather

Extreme weather is becoming more commonplace.  Metro will continue to design and build the system, as well as implement operational protocols, which assume extreme weather may become the “new normal”. Facility enhancements, new equipment, and strategic partnerships will also improve Metro’s ability to adapt to changing weather patterns.

Priority strategic actions underway include:

  • Continue to update weather plans annually

New priority strategic actions include:

  • Adjust contingency plans system-wide for increased extreme weather
  • Implement physical designs that assume more frequent extreme weather

For more information:

Download both the full Momentum plan and the Executive Summary.

Regional support is important to making Momentum a reality! A number of regional stakeholders have already endorsed Momentum. Please sign on and add your name to endorse Momentum and send the message that public transit is vital to the National Capital Region.

 

 

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