Transit Elevator/Escalator Training Consortium

In September 2010, The Transit Elevator/Escalator Consortium (the consortium) was formed to develop a national Transit Elevator/Escalator Maintenance Training and Apprenticeship Program to address the following concerns of the transit industry:

• Lack of quality training materials consistent training
• Safety and reliability of Transit elevators and escalators
• Liability concerns
• Growing state certification requirements
• Dissatisfaction with contracted-out maintenance

The consortium consists of Bay Area Rapid Transit, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, New York City Transit, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, and their local union partners, with national sponsorship from ATU, TWU and APTA.  Each location contributes staff time and expertise to this project as well as evenly split monetary contributions which are matched with funds from the Federal Transit Administration. The project is staffed and administered by the Transportation Learning Center.

The Courseware Development Process

These courses are developed through a participative Instructional Systems Design (ISD) process which partners experienced instructional designers with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from the world of transit elevators and escalators.  The designers and SMEs work very closely through the entire development process.  Additional resources include materials from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) like Kone and Fujitec who have agreed to contribute their visual and written training materials to the project.

Deliverables

The principal deliverables are the 45 maintenance training 45 courses. Each includes:
• Course books
• Lesson plans which support hands-on and On-the-Job learning
• Instructor PowerPoint presentations
• Detailed instructor guides

Previews of this material can be found on Transit Training Network

In addition, the Center has developed a Train-the-Trainer program which teaches seasoned transit elevator/escalator technicians about learning principles, participant engagement and how to use the instructor guides.

Finally, all of these components are built to be part of a larger system of apprenticeship.  An apprenticeship application was submitted to US DOL by the Center and accepted.

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