Publications and Reports

The Center’s analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data has shown that the transportation industry in large will likely see a massive front-line labor shortage in the next ten years unless it is able to find and hire skilled workers. In fact, it is estimated that 126 percent of Today’s transit workforce will have to be hired and trained in the next ten years.

In order to help fill this need, the center has produced a Veterans Crosswalk tool which matches skill-sets learned during military service with the kinds of skills that public transportation agencies look for when hiring signals maintainers. This product (screen shot shown here) was produced in cooperation with a Veterans Taskforce made up of veterans who are also Subject Matter Experts in the field of Signals Maintenance.

This detailed matrix has been distilled down into a user-friendly Veteran’s Factsheet which provides at-a-glance information for both veterans interested in a signals career and for agencies looking to hire skilled veterans.

For more information, contact Program Coordinator Kenyon Corbett @ kcorbett@transportcenter.org

A report on the process, products and outcomes related to the first National consortium for development of training for public transportation maintenance employees.  This joint labor-management effort set a proven model for multiple other similar consortia.  Products include - instruction ready courseware, a nationally recognized apprenticeship program for transit maintenance elevator/escalator maintainers and train-the-trainer program.

As presented at the March 2016 Meeting of the National Rail Car Training Consortium, this presentation gives guidance to transit locations on the benefits of apprenticship and how to locally implement the nationally recognized framework.

Download Presentation

The purpose of this report is to serve as a guidebook, offering information that transit agencies can use to establish mentoring as a training method with guidance, suggestions, and examples to implement or expand upon existing mentoring programs. It is based on a generic mentoring guidebook developed by the USDOT, modified and enhanced to reflect transit maintenance applications.

Meeting the challenge of developing fully qualified transit rail car maintenance technicians is the goal of Transit Cooperative Research Project (TCRP) E-7, Developing an Industry-Wide System of Qualification for Transit Rail Car Technicians – Building for Success. The best answer, fine tuned by transit industry experts working on this project, is a new multi-part, industry-wide system of qualification. This system brings together a broad range of training components including:
•  National training standards
•  Progressive classroom curriculum and courseware integrated with structured on-the-job learning,
•  A credential management system that keeps track of the worker’s training experience and skills
•  Apprenticeship frameworks with well designed sequences of learning, support of learners by trained mentors, and specialized training for instructors.

Read the full article in Metro Magazine.

One page information sheet for the Center’s Train-the-Trainer course.

Slide presentation from “Training for New Technologies” workshop held during the Center’s Making Connections conference on October, 26, 2017.

What are the major issues facing public transportation’s frontline workforce today? Looking out over the next decade and beyond, where should agencies, unions, and the industries that support our nation’s public transportation sector focus their attention to have the biggest impact on those issues?
In Making Connections 2017, we will attempt to answer these questions on a macro level through broadly focused plenary sessions which look at public transportation’s ongoing challenge to recruit, train and retain its frontline workforce and a forward-thinking vision of the future of public transportation.
Then we will drill down to help identify specific solutions to major industry challenges in our workshop sessions. There we focus on frontline workforce development and training from several angles.
We hope Making Connections 2017 will be a forum to discuss these challenges to transportation and exchange ideas to help formulate joint solutions that best serve the needs of transportation administrators, employees and most importantly, riders.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) have featured the Transportation Learning Center on its Competency Model Clearinghouse website as a “Competency Model in Action”. The case study of Center work, featured in ETA’s September posting, was titled “Transportation Learning Center Launches New Competency-Based Curriculum for Transit Occupations.”

Labeling the Center an “industry champion” in developing ETA’s Transportation, Distribution and Logistics Competency Model to help meet the transportation industry’s frontline employment needs” challenge, the case study features two key aspects of the Center’s work. The Center’s work creates bridges between the competencies developed in high schools, community and vocational colleges and workforce development programs with the competencies needed as incoming and apprentice workers in frontline transit positions. The Center’s education and training program, the Transit Core Competencies Curriculum (TC3) is currently being developed and piloted in selected locations.

ETA also highlights the Center’s work with industry subject matter experts across the country to put together a multiple-module training curriculum with instructor-ready courseware for incumbent frontline workers.

Finally, the case study notes the Center’s work with a range of national industry, education and workforce development organizations, as well as with ETA’s Office of Apprenticeship and the Urban Institute, to establish Registered Apprenticeships in five frontline transit occupations — Elevator-Escalator Technician, Signals Technician, Rail Car Technician, Bus Maintenance Technician and Transit Coach Operator.