Prestigious National Awards Recognizing Public Transit Organizations for Innovative and Proactive Safety Programs
NJ TRANSIT was awarded the 2021 American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Bus Safety Gold Award in the highly competitive large transit system category for transit agencies with 20 million or more passenger trips annually. The award was presented to NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin Corbett at the 2021 APTA Expo in Orlando. NJ TRANSIT was also awarded APTA’s 2021 Rail Safety Certificate of Merit for Commuter/Intercity Rail Systems.
“It’s an honor to be this year’s recipient of the Bus Safety Gold Award and the Rail Safety Certificate of Merit. These prestigious awards are a clear reflection of NJ TRANSIT’s continuing commitment to creating the safest possible travel environment for customers and employees,” said NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin S. Corbett. “As the awards are independently determined by our peers in the industry, this not only validates the results of our agency’s hard work over the last few years, but it is tangible affirmation that NJ TRANSIT is back as a national leader in public transit.”
NJ TRANSIT was honored with the APTA Bus Safety Gold Award for its implementation of the LytxÒ DriveCam Event Recorder, a system of onboard cameras, data collection, and assessments designed to address safety hazards proactively, to prevent unsafe operator behaviors before they lead to accidents.
After conducting a pilot program in 2008, NJ TRANSIT began the implementation in 2010, with the fleet fully equipped in 2012 and have continued to adapt the technology to improve safety. Between 2010 and 2020, NJ TRANSIT Bus Operations has realized a 70 percent reduction in near-collisions, thanks to the focused coaching and training enabled by the technology platform.
Technology, training, and risk analysis are all incorporated into a single system that is an integral part of overall Bus Safety at NJ TRANSIT. The system is designed to modify risky driving behavior through coaching and awareness, measuring both the severity and frequency of risky driving events and identifying the behaviors associated with these events, which enables NJ TRANSIT to focus on changing these behaviors to reduce collisions and near-collisions.
The Lytx system provides expert analytics, including video recordings, for NJ TRANSIT bus training staff to deliver focused coaching and training to bus operators. The system provides 50 hours of streaming video per camera (two cameras per bus) to capture what is happening inside and outside the bus.
NJ TRANSIT has implemented the technology’s Machine Vision and Artificial Intelligence detection of driver cell phone use and failure to stop at intersections (rolling stops) to further enhance the safety of its operation. This has expanded NJ TRANSIT’s ability to identify trends in risky behavior and adjust coaching/training of bus operators as needed, and will allow for continued improvements in the frequency and severity of risky driving events resulting in a safer bus system overall.
NJ TRANSIT was also named the winner of APTA’s 2021 Rail Safety Certificate of Merit award for Commuter/Intercity Rail Systems for its work on Positive Train Control (PTC.) PTC is technology to enhance rail safety by monitoring and controlling train movements. Using Global Positioning System technology, Wi-Fi and high band radio transmission, PTC is capable of automatically controlling train speeds and movements, thereby reducing the risk of accidents due to human error.
The APTA awards also provide value to the transportation industry by benchmarking successful programs so other public transit systems can implement them and reap similar benefits.
NJ TRANSIT wishes to recognize our Senior Vice President of Surface Transit and General Manager of Bus Operations, Mike Kilcoyne, and Acting Senior Vice President & General Manager of Rail Operations, Jim Sincaglia, and their respective teams for their successful efforts to keep our customers and employees safe, and for all their work that made these prestigious national awards possible.
NJ TRANSIT is the nation’s largest statewide public transportation system providing more than 925,000 weekday trips on 253 bus routes, three light rail lines, 12 commuter rail lines and through Access Link paratransit service. It is the third largest transit system in the country with 166 rail stations, 62 light rail stations and more than 18,000 bus stops linking major points in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia.
