News

APTA and the Center Continue Cooperative Efforts

Posted March 2016

This issue’s Partnership Highlight focuses on the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). For over fifteen years the Center has partnered with APTA on a number of workforce development projects and APTA’s President Michael Melaniphy serves on the Center’s board of directors as did his predecessor William Millar. APTA and the Center have been in the forefront of workforce development issues in the transit and commuter rail industries. APTA has facilitated the Center’s frontline workforce effort through opportunities to promote its programs and present its research findings at APTA events, providing display space at events and more. As an official standards-setting organization for the public transportation industry APTA accepted the Center-directed, industry-developed training standards for bus technician, railcar technician, signals maintainer and traction power mechanic. APTA has reviewed the training standards, put them out for public comment and posted the final products on the APTA website . More recently APTA has managed payments from agencies for the Elevator-Escalator, Signals and currently forming Railcar Consortia, organized by the Center. The Consortia are developing classroom ready training materials for each occupation. See the Center’s website for more details on these projects and more. The Center offers its heartiest thank you to APTA leadership and staff for their support.