GAO Reports – TSA Surface Transportation Security Training

This week the Government Accounting Office published a report on “Surface Transportation: TSA Implementation of Security Training Requirement”. This report is a look at the training mandate rule for selected surface transportation organizations that was published by TSA in 2020. The compliance date for that rule was extended a couple of times because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the report the TSA has identified 127 organizations subject to the training requirements of the new regulations. The ‘Highlights’ document accompanying the report notes that:

“As of December 2021, TSA had reviewed each of the 121 submitted training programs and had approved about three-fourths (88 of 121). TSA reported that it returned 84 percent of the submitted programs to owner/operators at least once for revision. The primary reason for TSA-requested revisions was that programs did not cover all the required training topics.”

This report also includes a list of public transportation and passenger railroads that are subject to the training requirements of the rule and a list of urban areas where over-the-road bus companies would be subject to those requirements.