About TTN

Changing technologies, shifting workforce demographics and record breaking growth in transit ridership make the effective development of new skills for workers an urgent need. To address need for a skilled workforce, the Transportation Learning Center (Center) has worked with transit labor and management to develop training standards, guidelines and recommended practices for transit occupations, forge local and regional training partnerships, and foster sharing of training resources across agencies.

Since eight year ago, six joint industry standards committees of over a hundred subject matter experts (SMEs) from dozens of agencies across the country developed training standards for six key frontline transit occupations – maintenance technicians rail car, bus, signals, traction power and elevator/escalator as well as bus operators. Work begun in 2004-2006 resulted in maintenance training standards being adopted by APTA in 2010. 

Building effective, quality training materials and systems on the foundation of occupational training standards is a long-term effort of the transit industry. The industry has begun this process by building Transit Training Consortia with SME technical committees. The Transit Elevator-Escalator Training Consortium began an initial 3-year effort for developing courseware materials and apprenticeship in 2010. For Transit Rail Car technicians a Center-industry effort is now concluding a five-year TCRP project to develop the framework for a joint qualification system that includes curriculum, apprenticeship and certification.

The Transit Training Network (TTN) is part of an industry-wide effort aimed at strengthening transit training programs. It is designed and maintained by the Transportation Learning Center, and provides a platform for industry occupational training committee members and local training practitioners to view the most updated industry training standards, and share and rate courseware, and engage in interactive discussion with peers on training related subjects. This website features:

Resource Library

• National Training Standards and Apprenticeship Guidelines (Public Access)
• Courseware developed by the National Transit Elevator-Escalator Training Consortium (Restricted Access)
• Courseware developed by the National Rail Vehicle Training Committee (Restricted Access)
• Courseware developed individual agencies for occupational training in bus operations, bus maintenance, rail vehicle maintenance, signals and traction power maintenance, and elevator/escalator maintenance (Restricted Access)
• White Paper on transit training (Public Access)
• Research and Metrics publications (Public Access)

Transit Training Forums for discussing and sharing training practices and materials (Restricted Access)

Transportation Learning Center is the only national organization that focuses on the frontline workforce in public transportation and transportation in general.  It is the only organization funded by the Federal Transit Administration, the US Department of Labor, and the Transit Cooperative Research Program to develop and support technical training partnerships for today’s and tomorrow’s front-line work force. For more information, please visit the Center’s main website at transportcenter.org