National Training Standards

Working with labor and management representatives, the Center develops national standards for workforce training in five key areas of transit.

• Bus Maintenance
• Rail Vehicles
• Rail Signals
• Elevator-Escalators
• Traction Power
• Bus Operator

Supported by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Federal Transit Administration, this project creates models for training and apprenticeship that can be used by systems across the country to address their training needs.

Ultimately, the models and systems created through this program will make it easier for the public transportation industry to achieve the needed improvements in maintenance workforce development by reducing cost, improving quality, increasing job stability and allowing for a more rapid and effective implementation of new technologies.

Courseware Sharing

The Transportation Learning Center has worked closely with transit labor and the American Public Transportation Association for more than six years to develop standards for training in key transit occupations.  Developing these national standards has grown naturally from local work in transit training partnerships.  Labor and management experts at the local level work together to describe what a good technician needs to know.  Those skills are translated into task statements that double as Learning Objectives and form the basis for training.  The skills required to maintain a bus in Altoona, PA are pretty similar to the skills needed in Atlanta or Seattle.  Nationally, labor and management subject matter experts worked to define national standards for training for bus, rail car, traction power and elevator-escalator technicians.  More recently, a labor-management committee worked to upgrade standards for training for bus operators.  More detail on these national standards for training is available at TransitTraining.net