The MTA is about to get a little more CSI.
City bus drivers will soon be armed with DNA swabs to gather evidence in the all-too-common event of an unhinged passenger spitting on them.
Transit workers catch a loogie 14 times a month, the MTA estimated in 2011.
The swab kits will be distributed to drivers once a new contract between the MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100 is finalized, union sources confirmed. They’ll include swabs, a rinse and a sealed container to store an assailant’s saliva sample.
“I’m overjoyed that the MTA finally put this into effect,” said Frank Austin, the TWU’s safety director for bus drivers. “We’ve been working on this for two contracts, about seven years.”
Swab kits have been given to drivers in Boston and England and have led to arrests there. In Boston, swabs cost $200 a pop.
After a sample is submitted, police run it against a DNA database for a match.
An MTA spokeswoman declined to comment on the cost of the program, noting the contract was not yet finalized.
But two MTA subdivisions — the MTA Bus Company and NYC Transit — operate a total of 5,701 buses, each of which would be outfitted with a swab kit. At a potential cost of $200 per kit, the overall cost to the city could reach $1.1 million.
“It’s going to cut down on people spitting on us, especially if people get arrested and it ends up in the newspaper,” said Thomas McNally, a TWU safety inspector.
Gobbing city bus drivers has become increasingly common in the last 10 years, said Austin, who has been driving an MTA bus for 25 years and estimates he gets reports of spitting at least once a week.
“It happened to me once in front of Stevenson HS. I was driving the Bx36,” he said. “I got the cops there the next day to see if they could find him.”
Most of the time, spitters don’t get caught.
David Ayala, who has been driving a bus in The Bronx for seven years, couldn’t collar a man who slimed him two years ago.
“The guy came on board and had no money. I’m looking at him, and he says, ‘What are you looking at?’ ” he recalled. “Before I knew it, he just said hoo-tooey and spit on my face.
“I’ve never been the same. I used to be real friendly, and now I’m distant.”
Like many drivers who get spit on, Ayala took several days off afterward.
Brooklyn bus driver José Martinez has been spit upon at least three times in his 30-year career and took off a combined year of work as a result.
“I’d rather be punched in the face five times,” the B68 driver told The Post in 2010 after the third assault. “I couldn’t be near people. I couldn’t trust them.”