Implementation Guidelines - Federal Transit Administration - U.S. ...

What happens in these cases?
The public transit industry is
complex, representing a variety of
operating environments, system designs,
modes of operation, and organizational
structures. As such, several issues have
arisen regarding the applicability of the
FTA regulations in different situations.
The following guidance is provided on
the most commonly raised of these
issues.
Contractors Covered Under the
Regulations of Other Modes. Many
transit systems contract with safetysensitive
contractors who are already
required to comply with the drug and
alcohol testing regulations of other
modes (i.e., FMCSA). If these
contractors are able to segregate the
employees who provide transit service
from those who perform safety-sensitive
functions for the other modes, the
employer is required to establish
programs for each group of employees
allowing for the corresponding
differences in the modal rules.
However, if the contractor’s
employees perform safety-sensitive
functions for both transit and another
mode, the employer must determine
which modal administration regulates the
majority (>50 percent) of the employees’
who perform safety-sensitive functions
covered under the USDOT. Once
determined, the employee will be subject
to pre-employment and random testing
under the regulatory authority of the
primary modal administration. The
assignment of regulatory authority for
reasonable suspicion and post-accident
testing will depend on the function an
employee is performing at the time of the
incident/accident. Return-to-duty and
follow-up tests will be assigned to the
modal administration that generated the
initial positive test result.
Brokerages and Human Service
Agency Transportation Coordination.
Agencies that provide several
transportation programs under one
umbrella such as a brokerage or a human
service transportation coordination
system need only test the public
transportation component of the services
as long as the services are distinctly
separate. Specifically, if there is no
intermixing of funds or personnel, the
services are considered separate and the
non-FTA funded transportation programs
are not subject to FTA’s drug and alcohol
testing rules. However, if the program is
integrated, the service is provided under
contract interchangeably, and/or the
service is funded all or in part by federal
transit funds, the service providers are
included.
The only exception is when the
brokerage is set up as a user-side subsidy
program where the passengers choose
which service provider they will use. In
this case, the service provider is exempt
because the broker or agency has no
contract with the service provider, and no
control over the passengers’ decisionmaking.
In situations where there is
some minimal overlap of duties or shared
responsibilities of staff (i.e., backup
driver in an emergency, shared
dispatcher), FTA considers this
“incidental overlap,” and does not require
coverage of the individuals performing
the incidental job functions.
Pass-Through Funding. In
situations where a transit system serves
only as a conduit to pass-through non-
FTA funding to another transportation
Chapter 2. Regulatory Overview 2-4 August 2002