The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Department of Safety and Quality Assurance (DSQA) has achieved the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2015 certification of its Quality Management System (QMS). This most recent certification makes MARTA one of the only transit systems in the country to obtain QMS, Environmental Management System (EMS), and Asset Management System (AMS) certifications.
 
MARTA’s DSQA provides three distinct services; quality assurance, operational and system safety, and configuration management, and earned the QMS certification after a rigorous five-phase process that included several rounds of internal and external audits and spanned almost two years.
 
“There is no greater responsibility than ensuring our customers and employees are safe,” said MARTA General Manager and CEO Jeffrey Parker. “We strive every day to fulfill our promise to provide a safe, quality transit system and DSQA makes sure all systems are managed and operated at the highest level. To receive this certification is a great accomplishment for DSQA and MARTA and a hallmark of excellence for continuous improvement.”
 
QMS helps coordinate and direct an organization’s activities and meet customer and regulatory requirements and improve its effectiveness and efficiency on a continuous basis. It integrates principles of customer focus into the services it provides, including leadership, the engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making, and relationship management. The standards also serve as the foundation of the Safety Management System (SMS), which will be implemented this year with the launch of the new MARTA Agency Safety Plan.
 
“You cannot have an effective SMS without applying QMS principles,” said Gena Major, MARTA Assistant General Manager of DSQA. “We will use these principles as the basis of MARTA’s Agency Safety Plan that continues to focus on effectively and proactively managing safety risks in our system.”
 
MARTA is among a small number of transit agencies in the U.S. to receive ISO certification of its Quality Management, Environmental Management, and Asset Management Systems, and the first to receive Multi-Site Certification in its bus, rail, and administrative facilities. In 2019, MARTA became the first transit organization in North and South America to receive the ISO 55001 certification for Asset Management.