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Mitigating Assaults on Transit Operators

Mitigating Assaults on Transit Operators

 

Operating a mass transit vehicle has always been a high-stress occupation. But over the last several years, it has become a great deal more stressful. The federal government has taken notice and is demanding transit agencies do likewise.

According to a recent Associated Press analysis of data from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), assaults against Transit Operators are now at a 15-year high. In 2023, assaults were up 47 percent compared to 2020. From 2011 to 2023, the rate of assaults more than quadrupled—a period during which FBI data found overall reports of violent crime dropping nationwide. The U.S. Department of Transportation has further noted that assaults are not only growing more common, but also more violent: “looking at customer assault events from 2008–2022, the injury rate … increased almost 294 percent and fatality rates increased 300 percent.”

Congress tried to address transit worker safety in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including measures that encouraged the adoption of safety interventions, such as on-board cameras and protective barriers. The FTA has now gone a step further, issuing General Directive 24-1: Required Actions Regarding Assaults on Transit Workers last September. This is FTA’s first General Directive, and it doesn’t just encourage safety, it requires more than 700 agencies to take action now to protect Transit Operators. As of January 2025, FTA found that in response to this directive roughly 85 percent of the affected agencies reported that they’d conducted a safety risk assessment, with 68 percent subsequently determining that some mitigations were necessary to protect Operator safety. The most popular mitigation is de-escalation training for transit workers.

According to long-time industry watchers, this fits a pattern. Since 2018, the FTA has steadily become more aggressive and proactive in its oversight of safety management issues.

Not All Mitigations are Created Equal

Under Directive 24-1, if a transit agency determines Operators are facing the risk of assault, then that agency “must identify strategies to mitigate that risk and improve transit worker safety.” FTA notes that the General Directive does not prescribe specific mitigations. This flexibility is appreciated. However, not all mitigations are created equal, according to William Cameron. Cameron is currently Director of Safety and Training at Paul Revere Transportation, having retired from a 25-year career at Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), where he served as the Division Chief of Training.

In Cameron’s experience, agencies usually rush to embrace the most familiar mitigation strategies. But these strategies are often not highly effective at reducing assaults. He offers the example of protective barriers:

“If you’re worried about Operator assaults,” Cameron explains, “it seems obvious: you put a barrier around the Operator, and the problem is solved. But when I was with MBTA, we did that right before the pandemic. We equipped all the buses with barriers. And it was unbelievable how much assaults went up, not down.”

Yes, barriers can usually prevent an Operator from being injured. But preventing injury isn’t the same as eliminating an assault. Even with the barrier in place, most of the elements that make an incident stressful—the yelling, lashing out, disruption of service, and potential for bystander injuries—were still present. In fact, in some instances, the barriers seemed to escalate the situation. The Transit Operator was protected, but the danger was not meaningfully mitigated.

“That experience helped me realize that a barrier is almost like PPE [personal protective equipment]: the last line of defense. Meanwhile, when you look at the safety spectrum, training may be one of the most effective mitigations if done correctly. Something like de-escalation training doesn’t just protect you if a situation gets out of control. It allows you to control the situation, alter it, and steer things in a safer direction.”

Transit Operator Safety Comes With Unique Challenges

De-escalation training is increasingly common in healthcare, law enforcement, and service-oriented jobs. But de-escalating a conflict in a bus is a unique challenge. Transit Operators need to be ready to anticipate when a situation with a passenger might go sour and steer it back in the right direction—while continuing to operate a 30,000-pound vehicle safely, maintain situational awareness of what’s occurring outside the bus, and tracking any further developments among other passengers looking to “help” (or eager to jump in and become part of the problem).

Unfortunately, most de-escalation training is designed for law enforcement tasks or healthcare settings. These rarely translate well to transit, especially for the Operator.

To fill this gap, FAAC developed Transit Response. This is a mass-transit specific training solution, built on the proven MILO simulator platform that is used for public safety de-escalation training.

Transit Response runs on FAAC bus driving simulator hardware, alongside the standard driving simulation software. Instead of relying on computer-generated environments, as is the case with driving simulators, Transit Response uses interactive high-definition video. In Transit Response, Operators can work through complex, high-tension interpersonal scenarios, actively using field-tested de-escalation and active communication strategies per their agency’s specific policies and procedures.

Metro Detroit’s Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) was an early adopter of Transit Response. As SMART’s Training and Development Coordinator Lafayette Kelley has explained:

“Conflict resolution [is] the big ticket item for us. What gives [Transit Operators] the most trouble, their most concern, is if someone is upset … I’m on this bus by myself; what can I do? We hope that … These different [training] scenarios give them a… kind of tool belt they can use. ‘Oh I saw this before. When I see a person do this, I should say this.’”

Meeting Training Goals and Mitigation Obligations With Simulation

Good simulation-based de-escalation training reduces risk to Transit Operators and other frontline workers, increases worker confidence, and fulfills an agency’s obligation to provide mitigations under Directive 24-1. For transit agencies that have already embraced simulation with one of FAAC’s simulators, it can be easy to add Transit Response. For those considering simulator-based training for the first time, FAAC offers a complete set of training simulators for Transportation Operators. Bundling in a Transit Response system is a cost-effective way to improve training and meet the FTA’s evolving expectations.

Looking to learn more about how immersive simulation can help you simultaneously meet training goals and mitigate risks to Operators? Reach out to us anytime. We’re happy to help you explore your training options.