MPTA hosted its latest Education Series on November 18, spotlighting the formation of the Transportation Workforce Center, a new FTA-funded initiative to assist transit providers across the country on workforce development and retention. TWC will have a Resource Center which will include best practices, training curriculum and materials, webinars, and case studies. There will also be opportunities with Mentor resources and connections to other peer agencies. The education series event allowed for interaction between the panel and providers and stakeholders in Missouri.
Kenyon Corbett, the Senior Program Associate with TWC, highlighted some findings identified in their recent study, “Study findings show that best practices for recruitment include incentives and flexibility, emphasis on community service role, job descriptions and advertisements and use of technology to help attract a large pool of diverse candidates. For retention, look at how routes are chosen, the role of enforcement of fare policy, use of shield for driver compartments and implement mentor programs.”
Discussions also centered around the CDL licensing changes for Entry Level Driver Training set to begin in February. The TWC staff is looking at the CDL licensing changes knowing it is a real problem at an already difficult time. “This will be a barrier to employment for many trade jobs, not just transit. Access to training from a certified training program is a problem,” said Matt Crawford, City Utilities of Springfield Transit Director. TWC will be holding conversations with FTA to ensure this is not an extra burden to operators. Metro Transit has its own training program but is currently down a couple of hundred operators. The consensus among Missouri providers on the call was any help to train or test drivers would be helpful for providers.
Other issues discussed impacting retention are pay scales, hours, and childcare. For more information, please visit twc@transportcenter.org