WASHINGTON - In a landmark agreement, the United Motorcoach Association and the American Bus Association have agreed to jointly develop and deliver a comprehensive security training program to the nation's motorcoach operators.
The agreement means the two associations will not be creating separate programs designed to help operators deal with criminal or terrorist attacks aimed at their passengers and buses, and vying for operators to adopt them.
Instead, the associations will come up with a single, comprehensive program and deliver it to thousands of coach companies at little or no cost to the operators.
In August, both associations were awarded separate grants by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration to develop security training programs.
The TSA awarded UMA a grant totaling $841,330, while the ABA received $773,614.
The associations had submitted lengthy applications to the federal government last March, competing for a share of $20 million in bus industry security grants that had been put up for grabs by the TSA. (See stories in the Sept. 1 issue of Bus & Motorcoach News)
Fifty-seven motorcoach operators in 24 states won the lion's share of the grant money, with the $1.6 million going to the two associations representing 8 percent of the total.
After the grants were announced, the two associations began discussions about joining forces and developing one program that could be extended to more operators. Nearly two months of negotiations produced a "teaming agreement" that will eliminate much of the duplication that would have occurred if the associations had continued down their separate paths.
"This partnership agreement joins both association security training proposals into a single complementary training program," said UMA President & CEO Victor Parra and ABA President & CEO Peter Pantuso in a joint statement. "It also means that over $1.6 million, which the Transportation Security Administration provided in separate grant awards to the associations . . . may be dedicated to this single effort.
"ABA and UMA have worked . . . to develop a combined, enhanced training program that will provide motorcoach operators and their employees with highly effective and efficient security training," Pantuso and Parra said in their statement.
"We anticipate that the first training kits will be shipped to applicant companies approximately four months after the TSA gives final approval to our revised proposals," the association executives added.
Field training will continue throughout the following year, with program completion occurring within one year of the TSA approval date."
The joint training program will be aimed at drivers, dispatchers, ticket agents, management, and maintenance and cleaning staff. It will include training videos, workbooks and Web-based instruction and evaluation packages to enable training delivery in any form convenient to participants.
It also will include a security vulnerability assessment and security audit to assess the effectiveness of the training.
The overarching goal is to get thousands of individual motorcoach companies to participate in the program.