Two good articles in Mass Transit Magazine

1. Reducing Risk By Michael Conlon and Brenda Himrich of the Minneapolis Metro Transit system, is about a safety campaign designed to reduce distracted driving on the part of bus drivers in their bus service.

When the system discovered that a bus driver was using a cell phone when getting into an accident with a bicyclist, they decided to develop an integrated campaign using internal media, training, and evaluation systems to reduce distracted driving--and accidents--by drivers. The media also ended up being repurposed as part of external communications programs.

The reason I find this article important is all the myriad of problems with safety that have been experienced over the past year with the WMATA system, and the need to develop an integrated and thorough response.

The Minneapolis transit system also quantified the financial benefits from accident reduction (as much as $30,000 for each accident eliminated). In the DC region it would be more, because so many of the accidents end up generating large settlements or legal awards.

2. Routing Culture By Tim Newcomb, is about transit system maps, objectives, communicating information, and schematic vs. geographic maps. From reading the comments, most of the map designers seem to be less focused on communicating broader information to occasional users.