Safety First, Safety Always

Usually, the answer would be no – but with an increasingly connected mobility system (think UberPOOL, Lyft Line and Bike Shares to get you to that last mile), there is greater efficiency and accessibility for riders, making it more than possible to make it on time. While we’re waiting for that ride we just scheduled, we often aren’t thinking about how safe it is, the bigger concern is just about getting to our destination on time.

There is growing talk about the future of integrated mobility; from mobility on demand to autonomous vehicles, all building up to the course and imminence of a mobile revolution. The question that remains is, how does this change impact our safety and security?

From cars and buses to bikes and trains and everything in between, we are always moving. Through an increasingly intelligent interconnected urban transportation infrastructure, there are new ways to get from one point to another. As the famous quote states: “With this power comes great responsibility”. In the transit industry, we translate that to: “With new mobility, comes greater responsibility to keep passengers safe”.

With public transportation, there are benefits that automatically stick out to us - when we think of taking public transit, such as an often-cheaper fare, reducing our carbon footprint and saving the environment. But how much do we think about safety as a benefit? Did you know it was a benefit? There is a common notion that driving is safer than transit, but after we did some digging around we found some safety facts we’d like to share.

According to a study from the Journal of Public Transportation, the risks associated with traveling by car or truck are roughly 60 times greater than travel by public transportation on a bus! This year, the U.S Department of Transportation stated that connected vehicles have the potential to address approximately 80% of vehicle crash scenarios involving unimpaired drivers.  This has been enabled by vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication technology and standards, which has in turn, led to crash avoidance and other safety applications that improve our overall safety. 

Safety and security may be terms we use and hear in our daily life and we can all agree that they are crucial elements in public transportation.  So much so, there are regulations that drive safety forward. In 2016, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) introduced new proposals that focused even more attention on safety issues; the proposed regulations required an annual review of a new safety management system that would overhaul everything from risk management to emergency preparation to response capabilities. The FTA’s actions were in response to Congressional requirement imposed by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. In turn, RATP Dev proactively created and implemented drive2zero™ , our Safety Management System (SMS).