In celebration of its Transit Operations Week, the State Road and Tollway Authority named its 2017 Transit Operators of the Year for the Xpress commuter coach program. The Transit Operators of the Year Award is awarded to drivers representing both of SRTA’s transit operations facilities. The recipient for South Operations is Bryan Mercer, who started with Xpress in 2014, the year the service launched, and who has reached 1 million driving miles for Xpress. The recipient for North Operations is Bernard Cannady, who has been driving in Gwinnett for more than 16 years and has garnered around 1.3 million number of miles.

The recognition week took place Oct. 30-Nov. 3 and activities included an awards recognition ceremony and luncheon, as well as a social media campaign in which riders were encouraged to show their appreciation to drivers with a thank-you card that could be downloaded from the Xpress website to acknowledge the contributions of transit operations staff.

Xpress gives commuters throughout the metro Atlanta region a valuable transportation option and also improves the capacity of Georgia’s most congested highways. Its 27 routes in 12 metro Atlanta counties carry more than 1.8 million passenger trips annually, providing workers with reliable, stress-free commutes to and from major employment centers in Downtown, Midtown and Perimeter Center.

SRTA operates the program out of facilities in Forest Park (South Operations) and Norcross (North Operations). The program has some 150 drivers who drive an average of 90 miles daily.

“Our transit operations staff, from mechanics to dispatchers to drivers, keep some 1.8 million passengers on the road annually,” Chris Tomlinson, Executive Director for SRTA, said. “We applaud their contributions – it takes a tremendous amount of work to keep the Xpress program operating safely and on schedule. In particular, we thank our bus drivers.”

Criteria for the Driver of the Year Award was:

Driver must have driven at least 75,000 miles or 8,500 hours in the last calendar year

Driver must have worked at least 3 consecutive years for Xpress

Driver must have exhibited the highest level of professionalism and safety during the previous 24 months with no preventable accidents

Driver must not have reported late to work or had any unexcused absences in the previous 12 months