6 U.S.C. § 1155 — Security awareness program

(a) Establishment. The Administrator must establish a program to improve surface-transportation security by training operators and “frontline employees” in the skills in subsection (c). (b) Application. The program covers every surface-transportation mode, including public transportation, rail, highways, motor carriers, and pipelines. (c) Training. At minimum, training must cover recognizing, assessing, and responding to suspicious items or actions that could signal a transportation threat. (d) Assessment. (1) The Administrator must assess current training programs. (2) The assessment must identify (A) other voluntary or federally required training and (B) gaps in existing training. (e) Updates. The Administrator must update the program as needed for changes in risk and terrorist methods and to close identified gaps. (f) Suspicious activity reporting. (1) The Secretary must maintain a national telephone number for reporting suspicious activity to the Administration. (2) The Administrator must establish procedures to review and follow up as needed on each report and to share it as needed and as law allows with appropriate Federal, State, local, and tribal entities. (3) This section does not replace or affect emergency 9-1-1 service or the training requirements in sections 1137, 1167, and 1184. (g) Frontline employee. The term includes (1) public-transportation drivers and operators, dispatchers, maintenance and support workers, station attendants, customer-service workers, security workers, transit police, other workers regularly contacting riders, and other agency workers the Administrator identifies or who receive training under other law; (2) over-the-road bus drivers, security workers, dispatchers, maintenance and support workers, ticket agents, terminal workers, and other operator or terminal workers the Administrator identifies or who receive training under other law; and (3) railroad security workers, dispatchers, locomotive engineers, conductors, trainmen, other onboard workers, maintenance and support workers, bridge tenders, and other railroad workers the Administrator identifies or who receive training under other law. The section does not otherwise define “frontline employee.”