The public transportation network in the United States includes 508 bus and rail agencies and 15 commuter railroads providing 22 million trips daily, 8 billion trips annually. These agencies employ almost 300,000 people and provide approximately 41 billion passenger miles of travel, about half by rail and half by nonrail service. Emergencies and disasters, whether they occur at transit agencies or in the communities they serve, threaten public transportation's ability to provide practical assistance to transit personnel with responsibility for planning, managing, and recovering from emergencies and disasters. Definitions and characteristics of these events and their impact on organizations and systems are provided. The evolution of emergency management in the transit environment is described, and specific emergency management tools are explained. These guidelines provide a detailed discussion of transit and community activities necessary to support emergency preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery efforts.
While disaster preparedness and emergency management have had a high publicprofile over the past decade, Hurricane Katrina revealed serious weaknesses...
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