Title 49

SECTION 673.27

673.27 Safety assurance.

§ 673.27 Safety assurance.

(a) Safety assurance process. A transit agency must develop and implement a safety assurance process, consistent with this subpart. A rail fixed guideway public transportation system, and a recipient or subrecipient of Federal financial assistance under 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53 that operates more than one hundred vehicles in peak revenue service, must include in its safety assurance process each of the requirements in paragraphs (b), (c), and (d) of this section. A small public transportation provider only must include in its safety assurance process the requirements in paragraph (b) of this section.

(b) Safety performance monitoring and measurement. A transit agency must establish activities to:

(1) Monitor its system for compliance with, and sufficiency of, the agency's procedures for operations and maintenance;

(2) Monitor its operations to identify any safety risk mitigations that may be ineffective, inappropriate, or were not implemented as intended;

(3) Conduct investigations of safety events to identify causal factors; and

(4) Monitor information reported through any internal safety reporting programs.

(c) Management of change. (1) A transit agency must establish a process for identifying and assessing changes that may introduce new hazards or impact the transit agency's safety performance.

(2) If a transit agency determines that a change may impact its safety performance, then the transit agency must evaluate the proposed change through its Safety Risk Management process.

(d) Continuous improvement. (1) A transit agency must establish a process to assess its safety performance.

(2) If a transit agency identifies any deficiencies as part of its safety performance assessment, then the transit agency must develop and carry out, under the direction of the Accountable Executive, a plan to address the identified safety deficiencies.

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