Professional Transit Management (PTM)/Veolia Transportation Inc. secured $306,264 in grant funds for the City of Tucson and Sun Tran from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Transit Security Grant Program.

The new funding will enable patrols of Sun Tran’s transit facilities, with more than $200,000 of this funding dedicated to pay for Tucson Police Department personnel over the next three years. The grant also funds a public awareness campaign to educate riders on transit safety and security.

Sun Tran is one of only 39 transit systems awarded funding for fiscal year 2011. The Transit Security Grant Program is competitive, with $576 million in funding sought by more than 200 grant applicants.

Since 2008, PTM/Veolia has been successful in securing funds from the Transit Security Grant Program three times, totaling $1.6 million in federal funds. Past awards paid for a complete upgrade to the electronic monitoring system at the Roy Laos Transit Center, nearly 1,000 hours of security training for Sun Tran and Sun Van employees, and funding for additional patrols at transit facilities by the Tucson Police Department.

DHS will provide just over $200 million to the owners and operators of transit systems to protect critical surface transportation and infrastructure and the traveling public from acts of terrorism.