FTA Issues ‘Transit Worker Fatigue’ Safety Bulletin

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WASHINGTON, D.C. –– The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has published Safety Bulletin 26-01: Transit Worker Fatigue, with recommendations to transit agencies on how they can improve safety for workers and the public.

“Based on ongoing analysis of major safety events reported to the National Transit Database (NTD), follow-up investigations of safety events by FTA and State Safety Oversight Agencies (SSOAs), and media coverage, FTA has to date identified 133 safety events since 2014 where transit worker fatigue was a factor,” the government department reported in a April 2026 safety bulletin, which took effect April 10 (download below). “The majority (73) of those fatigue-related events have occurred since the beginning of 2022, marking a sharp uptick in the number of events in recent years. Since 2014, these 133 transit worker fatigue-related safety events have led to one fatality, 149 injuries, and $12.3M in estimated property damages.”

FTA is recommending that transit agencies “subject to its PTASP regulation use the Safety Management Systems (SMS) principles and Safety Risk Management (SRM) procedures established in their Agency Safety Plan to assess the safety risk associated with transit worker fatigue.” When assessing fatigue-related risks, it said, agencies are encouraged to consider:

“• Hazard Identification:

• “Conditions particularly vulnerable to fatigue, such as split-shift assignments, operations on long routes, and operations during late-night or extended work shifts.
• “Job tasks or employee groups vulnerable to fatigue-related errors, including safety sensitive employees, dispatchers, supervisors, and maintenance staff.  

“• Safety Risk Assessment:

• “The likelihood of fatigue contributing to operational errors or safety events.
• “The severity of potential consequences using insights from the effectiveness of existing safety risk mitigations.”

FTA said that as a result of the Safety Risk Assessment, an agency may determine that mitigations are needed to reduce the likelihood and severity of potential consequences. “Based on feedback received from transit agencies on recent FTA requests for information and rulemaking activities,” the FTA recommends considering the following “common mitigations” that transit agencies have implemented:

• Fatigue Risk Management Programs that apply “scientifically informed fatigue science, such as validated biomathematical fatigue models, where appropriate.”
• Adjustments to work scheduling practices to “ensure that transit workers are provided the opportunity for adequate rest between work shifts.”
• Work schedule training “to ensure work scheduling practices are implemented effectively.” Training may include “initial and recurrent instruction for schedulers to ensure they understand and adhere to established policies and mitigation strategies.”
• Transit worker fatigue awareness training, which could cover “recognizing signs of fatigue and how to report fatigue-related concerns; understanding the importance of proper sleep hygiene, circadian rhythm awareness, and the health impacts of chronic sleep loss; and how a supervisor should respond when an employee reports fatigue.”
• Nonpunitive fatigue reporting programs that could include the industry practices of “allowing frontline personnel to confidentially report fatigue concerns or insufficient rest; feeding information directly into SRM and Safety Assurance processes for hazard identification, risk assessment, and mitigation monitoring; including mechanisms to analyze reports for trends; and providing feedback to employees to reinforce trust and demonstrate the value of reporting.”

By integrating these practices, FTA said, “transit agencies can more effectively identify, assess, and mitigate fatigue-related risks to improve the safety of transit workers and the public.”

FTA said that once mitigations are identified and implemented, “an agency should use its Safety Assurance process (49 CFR § 673.27) to monitor their effectiveness.” It recommends that transit agencies “develop performance measures to evaluate the effectiveness of any implemented fatigue-related mitigations, using data such as safety events and near misses.”