APTA Chair Flora Castillo and President & CEO Michael Melaniphy announced the winners of the 2013 APTA Bus Safety and Security Excellence Awards during the Opening General Session of the Bus & Paratransit Conference.

The awards recognize the North American bus systems with the top safety and security programs and provide value to the industry by benchmarking successful programs. The four award criteria are effectiveness, benefit level, innovation, and transferability.

The top honor is the Gold Award, given to organizations with the best overall bus safety or bus security program. A Certificate of Merit goes to organizations in recognition of exceptional achievement in safety or security. This year’s winners include the following:

* Bus systems with fewer than four million annual passenger trips: Gold Award for Safety, SouthWest Transit Authority (SWTA), Eden Prairie, MN; Certificate of Merit for Security, SWTA.

* Bus systems with more than four million and fewer than 20 million passenger trips annually: Certificate of Merit for Safety, Capital District Transportation Authority, Albany, NY; Certificate of Merit for Security, Transit Authority of River City, Louisville, KY.

* Bus systems with 20 million or more passenger trips annually: Gold Award for Security, Societe de Transport de Montreal (STM), Montreal, QC; Gold Award for Safety, Metro Transit, ­Minneapolis/St. Paul; Certificate of Merit for Safety, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), ­Portland; OR; Certificate of Merit for Security, MTA New York City Transit.

* Private companies providing contracted transportation management and services: Certificate of Merit for Safety, National Express Transit–Westmoreland County Transit Authority, Greensburg, PA.

APTA President & CEO Michael Melaniphy and APTA Chair Flora Castillo present the Gold Awards for Safety and Security. Representing SWTA, from left: Jon Donovan, vehicle maintenance manager; Steve LaFrance, director of maintenance and facilities; David Jacobsen, chief operating officer; and Len Simich, chief executive officer.

Representing STM, from second from left: Rene Leonard, drivers’ union; Marie France Duguay, vice president, drivers’ union; Marc Vendette, director-bus source delivery; and Michel Lefebvre, director-human resources.

Jan Homan, center, deputy chief of operations-bus, Metro Transit, accepts his agency’s Gold Award from Castillo and Melaniphy.