Six months ago, four companies were competing for the shuttle service at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. Each of the 10 members on the selection committee agreed that the current operator, ShuttlePort, was ranked last and would not be renewed.
In 2007, ShuttlePort drivers had been involved in two fatal accidents -- one of them a head-on collision between two of its vans -- killing a total of three people. An investigation found that 10 ShuttlePort employees should not have been allowed to drive vans because their driving records violated the company's contract with Broward County.
The county auditor found that "ShuttlePort did not comply with contract provisions requiring compliance with safety laws and regulations for motor carriers and limiting driver points on their state of Florida motor vehicle records."
"I would certainly say that's a safety issue," Broward County Mayor Lois Wexler said.
ShuttlePort is a small part of Veolia Environnement, the massive French firm that employed Robert M. Sanchez, the engineer of the Metrolink train that crashed into a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth on Sept. 12, killing 25 people, including himself, and injuring 135.
Through its Veolia Transportation division, the company bills itself as "the leading public transit operator in Europe, Australia and the USA, currently handling more than 2.5 billion passenger journeys a year." Veolia Transportation is the North American group that employed Sanchez.
The company runs rail systems, bus lines and taxi companies. It not only owns ShuttlePort but also SuperShuttle in Los Angeles and elsewhere. It runs Boston's commuter rail system, buses in Washington, D.C., Denver, Las Vegas, Connecticut and Texas. It runs light-rail systems in Barcelona and the metro in Stockholm.
It operates buses for the disabled and elderly in Orange County and San Francisco, and has bus contracts with Victor Valley, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System and Chico. Veolia runs the Los Angeles Department of Transportation's commuter express service and some of the DASH routes. Since June 2005, it has provided engineers for Metrolink, winning a contract that Amtrak used to hold.
Veolia Transportation is one of four divisions of Veolia Environnement, which is the world's largest water company, operating wastewater and tap water systems for municipalities and industrial clients. The firm has $48 billion in total annual revenue and 320,000 employees in 64 countries.
