In August 2008, the Transportation Learning Center (TLC or “the Center”) designed and conducted a comprehensive survey on the transit rail car mechanic population and their current training and certification practices based on recommendations from the TCRP E- 7 panel. The Center reached out to transit rail agency managers as well as their union counterparts to complete the online survey.
This article discusses the joint training and apprenticeship system emerging in maintenance occupations in the American transit industry, its challenges and strategies to overcome them. The article reports on early results, including efforts to develop a consensus national framework for apprenticeship and training in transit maintenance.
This working paper provides an initial overview of the findings from ongoing research at the Transportation Learning Center regarding strong industry-wide workforce development systems in six other countries and in several US industries.
The Measuring Up project goes beyond earlier research by showing that enhanced maintenance training through Pennsylvania’s statewide Keystone Transit Career Ladder Partnership has (1) raised the knowledge and skill levels of transit maintenance employees, (2) led to improved effectiveness in diagnostics and repair and (3) yielded significantly reduced maintenance costs and improved vehicle reliability.
Research shows that enhanced maintenance training through Pennsylvania’s statewide Keystone Transit Career Ladder Partnership has (1) raised the knowledge and skill levels of transit maintenance employees, (2) led to improved effectiveness in diagnostics and repair and (3) yielded reduced maintenance costs and improved vehicle reliability.
Measuring Up: Volume 2 series goes beyond earlier research by calculating transit return on its investment in this particular kind of partnership-based, data-driven training program.
Employees and their supervisors, this unique partnership-based, data driven customized approach to training at statewide scale has been a great success. Transit systems, it has led to significant improvements in efficiency and cost savings.
Project E-7 will be fully integrated with the ongoing labor-management project for developing national training standards for transit rail car technicians.
The Transit Training Network uses technology to enable learning and sharing of training resources across agencies to strengthen training for transit’s frontline workforce.
Rating: Not yet rated | Contains 1 Document | More information »