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Two RTA HealthLine busses heading in opposite directions pause at a bus stop near Playhouse Square on Euclid Avenue in this file photo from 2010. A year earlier, RTA installed a voice-alert system to signal to pedestrians when a bus is making a turn. RTA announced it's received a federal grant for another safety measure -- an on-board collision-avoidance system.

(Joshua Gunter, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Bus-pedestrian fatalities at the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority have dropped to zero since RTA installed a voice-alert system that can be heard outside buses, to signal when the vehicles are making a turn.

The transit agency said Thursday that safety should increase further with a collision-avoidance system it will test on some of its buses.

RTA, in partnership with the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, will develop the equipment using a $2.7 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration.

RTA's award is among $29 million in federal grants given to 13 agencies nationwide to support improvements in track-worker and passenger safety, and to help transit agencies respond more effectively to natural disasters and emergencies.

The collision-avoidance system coming at RTA will be similar to those found in high-end cars and trucks. The systems detect, warn and even automatically stop vehicles when they get too close to another object.

RTA paid out more than $6 million between 2007 and 2009 to compensate for injuries and deaths caused by buses and trains. Two cases in which buses made left turns and struck people in crosswalks accounted for more than half the payments -- $3.8 million, a Plain Dealer review of lawsuits found.

Since RTA installed "safe turn alert technology" on its buses in 2009, there have been no pedestrian fatalities, General Manager Joe Calabrese said.

"Caution, bus turning, pedestrians look both ways, look both ways," is the phrase that emanates from stereo speakers inside and outside the bus.

Once the collision-avoidance technology is tested, RTA will install it fleet-wide and share the technology with other transit agencies, Calabrese said. RTA did not have immediate word on when the equipment will go on the first buses, but said the collaboration with Battelle is expected to begin in several months.

"Modern transportation systems are more than concrete and steel, as this project shows," said U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur, who along with Representative Marcia Fudge helped secure the RTA funding.

Fudge added, "Over half of households in some neighborhoods within the 11th Congressional District do not own a car. The continued safety of thousands of residents, workers and students, who depend solely on public transit each day, is very important."

Among other projects selected by the FTA and their grants:

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, $1.7 million, to test a radar-based system that alerts train operators and transit officials when people or objects are on the tracks.

The Minnesota Valley Transit Authority, $1.8 million, to equip buses in its bus-rapid transit and express bus fleets with GPS technology to improve safety and service within narrow shoulder lanes along highly congested corridors in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The New Jersey Transit Corporation, $844,000, for a forecast and observation system to gauge the risk and magnitude of flooding before and during storm surges.