Inside Atlanta’s High-Profile Security Control Rooms

Celebrating its 35th year, MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) provides the greater Atlanta region bus and rail transportation service and ranks in the top 10 nationally in annual unlinked passenger trips. It’s had the opportunity to participate in audits from the Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Transit Administration on a national level along with the Georgia Department of Transportation locally, “so we’re audited very extensively from all of these agencies with respect to our security program,” according to MARTA Emergency Awareness Coordinator Monty Montgomery.

“They also afford us an opportunity to participate in the transit security grant program, which is provided by DHS, and they provide us funding to facilitate several of our security initiatives. … We’ve been trying to do a lot of good things with security recognizing that from a DHS perspective, outside of aviation that transit is the next greatest at risk in terms of a terrorist attack.”