Using Kitsap Transit is safe as there were only nine “minor assaults” last year, the KT board learned March 25 during a presentation on the Operational Safety Report.

There were no “major assaults,” which would have required medical transport.

All assaults, including verbal threats, intimidation or harassment, are reported to the Federal Transit Administration’s national database, per KT.

Five assaults were against security personnel, with the remaining four mostly involving passengers threatening or yelling at bus or ferry crews, KT public information director Sanjay Bhatt said.

KT has five core safety performance measures: fatalities, injuries, safety events, transit worker assaults and system reliability.

Bainbridge Island City Councilmember and KT boardmember Clarence Moriwaki said no injuries or fatalities is the goal of any transit agency. “We clearly want everyone to be safe. But also, we are certainly concerned about the safety of the people who work for the agency, the operators and everybody in the support staff,” he said.

The report reviewed the progress of safety and security programs and KT’s 2022-24 safety performance data. In September 2024, the FTA released a directive requiring transit agencies to collect data on assaults involving transit workers. “FTA has identified a national-level hazard that transit workers must interact with the public and, at times, must clarify or enforce agency policies, which can present a risk of transit workers being assaulted on transit vehicles and in revenue facilities,” the FTA says.

The directive requires agencies to complete three tasks: conduct a safety risk assessment, identify safety risk mitigations, and submit specific information to the FTA.

Regarding safety reporting, KT encourages employees to report injuries beyond the legally reportable requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The goal of comprehensive reporting is to provide more-accurate data on different types of incidents in order to prevent injuries, Bhatt said.

Last year, KT reported 78 injuries systemwide, with only 33 meeting OSHA reporting requirements, per Bhatt. KT also reported zero fatalities system-wide.

“If you don’t have the data and you don’t see a trend, then you can’t make it safer, because you didn’t know what happened,” Moriwaki said.