FTA Proposes Revisions to Safety Requirements for Buses and Vans

This past week, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced that it will revamp the safety regulations and testing requirements for buses and modified vans.  In a cost-saving effort, FTA intends to do away with the on-road fuel economy test and instead will rely on testing done on chassis dynamometers.  Excerpts from the FTA notice are included below:

The FTA intends to “establish a new pass/fail standard and new aggregated scoring system for buses and modified vans (hereafter referred to as “bus” or “buses”) that are subject to FTA’s bus testing program, as mandated by Section 20014 of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). The proposed pass/fail standard and scoring system address the following categories as required by MAP-21: structural integrity, safety, maintainability, reliability, fuel economy, emissions, noise, and performance. Once FTA issues a rule in final form, recipients will be prohibited from using FTA financial assistance to procure new buses that have not passed the test. FTA is also seeking comment on establishing testing requirements and a scoring system for remanufactured vehicles sold by third-party vendors and procured using FTA funding, which FTA plans to address in a subsequent rulemaking action. Finally, FTA is proposing to apply Buy America U.S. content requirements to buses submitted for testing.”

Comments on the notice are due August 24, 2015.  The full notice is available here.