September/October 2023 - 32

APTA Awards
The safety exercise, called the Transbay
Tube exercise, is held in the first couple
weeks of January in the tunnel itself.
BART conducts drills and practices
with the Oakland and San Francisco
fire departments, along with five other
agencies in the area. Maloney takes part
in these drills.
" I will tell you drills and exercises are so
much fun to do and I really enjoy them but
planning them can be a giant headache, "
Maloney remarked.
Maloney's next point was raised in
the second pillar of the BART Fire Life
Safety Program: Inspection of BART's
properties and stations in the form of a
program based on California's fire and
safety protocols.
" We track these standards on our properties
to completion using all the Safety
Management Systems (SMS) protocols
and hold them as our standard here in
the business, " Maloney said.
Maloney goes on to note the inspection
program has become a full annual rotation
that started out in the BART stations
and expanded out to all BART properties.
The third pillar in BART's Fire Life
Safety Program is to plan standards for
future structures and projects with full
consideration to fire life safety protocols.
" Our end objective here is to satisfy not
only our partners in fire (firefighters), but
also to give our patrons and our public
a safer system to ride on with all of this
intact, " Maloney said.
To ensure BART remains a safe space
for riders now and in the future, the BART
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
(VTA) partnership committee was
formed to safety screen the VTA BART
Silicon Valley Phase II tube extension
project. The BART extension through
San Jose into Santa Clara is being led by
VTA in partnership with BART.
Maloney serves as chair on this committee,
which is currently reviewing the
extension project.
" My role has been to initiate and chair
the Fire Life Safety and Security Committee
for the project. This brings together key
stakeholders, including the fire marshals
from both cities as [authorities having jurisdiction]
oversight, to analyze and secure
the fire code and operational components
of the project design, " Maloney noted.
This collaborative approach between
local fire departments and the agency was
a crucial element that earned BART's Fire
Life Safety Program a Rail Safety Gold
Award from the American Public Transportation
Association (APTA) at the association's
Rail Conference this past June.
Communication and
documentation
Communication and data keeping is essential
when handling the many spread
out properties of BART. To support outreach
and maintenance in BART's jurisdictions,
many SMS implementations
were adopted, including fire and incident
maps to track and acknowledge problem
hot spots on BART properties.
The data collected from these " heat
For more information, visit www.MassTransitmag.com/21208472
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September/October 2023

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