Publications and Reports

This guidebook is developed by the Transportation Learning Center to help transit agencies determine benefits and return on investment (ROI) stemming from their training programs. When calls are being made to cut or even eliminate training for vehicle operators and technicians, training departments are finding it necessary to justify their existence. Applying a five-level assessment methodology, the guidebook illustrates the training benefits derived from over 12,000 training opportunities provided to technical occupations by the Keystone Transit Training Partnership formed in Pennsylvania. Results, which include a return of five to 12 times the training investment, serve as an example of what other agencies could demonstrate in terms of quantifia ble training benefits. The five-level procedure offered in the guidebook is progressive, beginning with rather easy steps agencies can take to prove the value of training and building from there depending on available resources.

The Department of Labor selected the Transportation Learning Center as a Green Jobs funds recipient because the Center has been at the forefront of addressing the issue of insufficient training in the transit industry and building constructive partnerships between labor and management to address this critical issue. The grant succeeded in creating new training approaches and providing training to thousands of workers in key transit occupations, with a consistent focus on greening the economy and our communities.

The Green Jobs Training Partnership is built on the Center’s successful model of creating and supporting labor-management partnerships to plan and deliver transit training that provides instruction based on national standards. The Partnerships plan and carry out training, to help transit employees obtain the skills they need to stay current in an industry that is ever changing.

The two most urgent workforce development priorities for the frontline workforce in transit (and transportation) are (1) developing a systematic approach to more and better training for the blue collar technical workforce and (2) creating broadly available career pathways linking education and industry for jobs that don’t require a 4-year college degree. Major national attention has focused on both priorities recently.

After seven years of diligent effort the transit industry’s National Committee on Transit Rail Car Training Standards has released its Findings and Recommendations for Implementing Standards-Driven, Partnership-Based Training.  This important document is the product of joint transit management and union subject matter experts working together to develop better industry training and thus a more efficient and effective frontline rail vehicle maintenance technician cadre.

In collaboration with the Bus Operator National Joint Training Standards Committee, the Center is please to present Bus Operator Restroom Use, a case study and compendium of practitioner resources on restroom use, including a history of restroom use policy at Minneapolis Metro Transit. The resources in this report also include a model community restroom licensing agreement, route-specific restroom locations chart, and example collective bargaining language.

You never know how well you are doing until you find metrics with which you can measure outcomes. The Transportation Learning Center has capitalized on this insight through a series of in-depth research reports chronicling work by labor-management partnerships in Philadelphia, PA and Albany, NY. This fact sheet outlines these findings and shows an astonishing return on training investment - 745%.

This publication draws example from the Center’s national labor-management committees, which have met regularly for several years to develop consensus training guidelines. These joint committees have focused on five transit maintenance occupations: bus, rail signals, traction power, rail vehicles and transit elevator/escalator. A parallel joint effort has been crafting a national framework for transit apprenticeship.

This publication outlines the process of creating and utilizing labor-management training partnerships through such things as:
o Skill gap analyses
o Training standard creation
o Forming training networks and labor-management committees
o Developing new courseware

Public Transit saves 37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually yet it is grossly ignored in the world of “green.” This fact sheet makes the case that transit jobs are not only green jobs but they are also good, union jobs which grow the economy.

This research paper outlines the Center’s initial findings on how other countries and industries implement labor-management training systems. The paper explores workforce development practices in countries including Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as in the US based industries of electrical work, masonry, pipefitting and iron working that also promote a joint structure for workforce training.

A system of training elements can provide a framework for the implementation of quality transit training programs. This paper describes a system of training elements based on several national models for training program review and accreditation. In the future, the use of training program guidelines may lead to an established process for industry training program accreditation for college credit and apprenticeship, as well as an established precondition for possible future testing and qualification.