Establishing a National Transit Industry Rail Vehicle Technician Qualification Program— Building for Success (2014)

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1 Meeting the challenge of developing fully qualified transit rail car maintenance techni- cians is the goal of TCRP Project E-07, “Establishing a National Transit Industry Rail Vehicle Technician Qualification Program: Building for Success.” The best answer, fine-tuned by the research team for this project, is a new multipart, industrywide system of qualification. This system of qualification integrates a number of related elements: national training stan- dards; a progressive classroom curriculum and introductory courseware; on-the-job learn- ing modules; and an apprenticeship framework that combines well-designed sequences of learning, mentoring to support learners, and coordination of classroom and on-the-job learning. All these components provide the foundation needed for written and hands-on assessments to confirm that technicians have the practical knowledge and skills required to perform their jobs at the highest level of expertise. The Skills Challenge and the Solution: An Integrated System of Qualification A world class system of qualification is the best answer to transit’s technical skills challenge resulting from retirements, expansion of transit rail, and advancements in technology. This industrywide, integrated system of qualification is the most cost-effective way for transit agencies to build the skills of a wave of new hires, equivalent to 88 percent of today’s total transit workforce over the next 10 years. Building the skills of this new workforce is a priority for safety and service reliability as well as for transit economics. The national leadership of the transit industry, including both management and labor at the highest levels, has recognized the urgency of these challenges. Transit leaders have come together over the past decade to develop an industrywide system of technical training that can be customized locally for quality, cost-effective implementation in transit agencies across the country. Customizable, industrywide solutions are being built that mobilize experience and knowledge across the transit industry and share development costs across many properties and with national transit organizations such as FTA, TCRP, and the U.S. Department of Labor. This approach is much more effective than the legacy system, which relies on the resources of individual agencies to determine what workers need to know, how to teach it effectively, and then how to confirm that they have mastered the necessary skills. Better skills and knowl- edge should translate into increased safety and reliability of equipment and service, a better state-of-good-repair, reduced risk and costs, more efficient maintenance and operations, and longer lived and more reliable capital equipment. These benefits lead to a substantially posi- tive return on the agency’s and industry’s investment in developing human capital. In many Establishing a National Transit Industry Rail Vehicle Technician Qualification Program— Building for Success S U M M A R Y 13753-01_Summary-3rdPgs.indd 1 7/16/14 3:50 PM

2respects, TCRP’s Project E-07 on qualification of rail car technicians is breaking the trail for parallel efforts by existing industry partnerships with FTA for transit elevator-escalator tech- nicians and signals technicians and future efforts for other occupations in the years to come. The foundation for this project’s work is provided by the knowledgeable transit rail car subject matter experts (SMEs) on the TCRP Project E-07 panel and on the National Rail Vehicle Training Standards Committee. The two overlapping groups were recruited from 30 different agencies and local unions and included frontline rail car mechanics, training department staff, and maintenance supervisory personnel in an industry where more than 90 percent of the frontline workers are represented by unions and frontline workers make up 80 percent of the industry’s workforce. The first priority of TCRP Project E-07 and the National Rail Vehicle Training Standards Committee was to complete the work of developing the rail car industry training standards. Projects begun in 2004 and 2006 developed training standards for technicians in rail car, rail signals, traction power, and transit elevator-escalator, as well as in transit bus. The process ultimately identified over 1,300 technical learning objectives and organized them in a sequential curriculum of 42 training courses and 177 modules. These training standards were adopted as recommended practices in the APTA standards process in 2010. These consensus rail vehicle industry training standards provide the foundation for develop- ing a common framework of national training resources and systems that can be customized by agencies and training programs for use with particular fleets and equipment, as well as for specific local practices for maintenance, career ladder advancement, and training. Rail Car Technician System of Qualification Integrates Multiple Components The research team developed a comprehensive integrated system of qualification for rail car technicians. The framework for a system of qualification was drawn from the positive experience of durable, high-quality national training systems for frontline technical workers in other U.S. industries and in other countries. The research team found a number of common features in these successful durable programs: • Sectorwide national training partnerships involving employers and sector unions, sometimes with government and education partners • Use of a data-driven system with stakeholder engagement to develop and maintain standards-based curriculum content • Provision of a stable source of funding • Training and certification for new hires through training and apprenticeship systems combining classroom learning with paid on-the-job learning • Training and certification for lateral entrants and experienced incumbents. The system of qualification developed under TCRP Project E-07 builds on these com- mon features. The system was developed through expert stakeholder engagement and joint development of foundational national training standards and curriculum. Going beyond training standards and curriculum, the system is designed to integrate additional critical components including standards-based courseware, well-trained instructors and mentors, coordinated classroom and on-the-job learning, and a credential management system that can track the training that technicians have received and their success in assessments that measure their mastery of the skills and knowledge of their occupation. The national system is designed to support local customization to match the work systems and equipment in each transit location (see Figure S-1).

3 Rail car technicians will move through a progression of classroom and hands-on learning, from basic fundamentals (the 100 level) through intermediate, occupation-specific skills (the 200 level), to advanced skills in troubleshooting and diagnostics (the 300 level). Separate skills training will focus on the skills for component rebuilds and overhaul (the 250 level). At the 200 and 300 levels, specific learning frameworks address the needs of each of the 11 subsystems that make up modern transit rail cars plus diagnostics and troubleshooting. At the 200 level these instructional courses are the following: • Course 201: Couplers • Course 202: Trucks and Axles • Course 203: Propulsion and Dynamic Braking • Course 204: Auxiliary Inverters and Batteries • Course 205: Friction Brakes • Course 206: Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) • Course 207: Current Collection • Course 208: Car Body • Course 209: Doors • Course 210: Communication Systems • Course 211: Computer-Based Train Control • Course 212: Monitoring, Diagnosing, and Troubleshooting At the 100 level, existing courseware was collected on fundamental topics such as alternating current/direct current (AC/DC) fundamentals and basic hydraulic and pneumatic theory Figure S-1. National and local qualification system.

4and applications. That courseware has been validated against the national training standards and is available for sharing across the industry. At the intermediate 200 level, SMEs from the National Rail Vehicle Training Standards Committee paired up with instructional designers at the Transportation Learning Center to develop primers on each of the 12 rail car subsystems and advanced topics in the 200 level courses. These primers follow a standardized format, which, on an introductory level, covers the learning objectives outlined in the national training standards in sections, including definitions and abbreviations, text by topic area, bibliography, relevant original equipment manufacturer (OEM) contact information, and the pertinent section of the national training standards for that primer. The primers are intended as introductory materials or study guides rather than as textbooks. Courseware Validated to the National Standards For more detailed courseware assessment, the Transportation Learning Center has developed a self-evaluation process whereby transit agencies, vendors, or any third-party organization developing course materials can evaluate their courseware against the national training standards. Courseware evaluation through a local joint team can help identify deficient courseware and devise an approach to add the missing elements, especially in hands-on learning applications. The sharing of training materials across agencies greatly reduces the costs associated with each agency having to develop these materials on their own. Under- standing the benefits, the Transportation Learning Center has developed a courseware sharing mechanism through its Transit Training Network (TTN) website (TransitTraining.net). TTN serves as a logical platform for sharing the collected materials among the transit community, including the 12 primers at the 200 level and the materials validated at the 100 level. In addition to courseware, TTN provides a library of other useful training documents to share including training standards, papers on various training subjects, research on training metrics, and other subjects. Apprenticeship The research team sees registered apprenticeship as the most effective model for integrated training of frontline technicians. The proposal for a new national apprenticeship for transit rail vehicle technicians was submitted on behalf of this joint industry effort. It was approved by the U.S. Department of Labor in June 2013, providing a valuable new resource of registered apprenticeship for the transit industry. The national qualification system and U.S. Depart- ment of Labor registered apprenticeship developed through TCRP Project E-07 provide a common framework with flexibility for local customization by individual agencies. Qualification—Training, Assessment, and Grandparenting The National Rail Vehicle Technician Qualification Program contains three successive levels of qualifications, built on the basis of national training standards and the Rail Vehicle Technician Apprenticeship as approved by the U.S. Department of Labor: • 100 Level leading to Qualified Rail Vehicle Apprentice Technician (Craft titles used are for the National Qualification Program only. Actual local craft titles will be determined by local collective bargaining agreements.) • 200 Level leading to Qualified Rail Vehicle Technician • 300 Level leading to Qualified Rail Vehicle Master Technician

5 A necessary component of the qualification system is grandparenting of incumbent technicians. As new requirements are established for new hires, it is important to the program’s success that implementation of the new system not punish technicians already on the job. It was the consensus view to follow the norm of protecting the status of incumbents that is seen in many industries introducing new systems of apprenticeship or qualification. For new hires, participation in the detailed training curriculum is a prerequisite for any formal assessments. The rail car technician assessments have been carefully designed to include written and hands-on assessments. Detailed questions for assessments have been jointly developed and jointly piloted through the TCRP Project E-07 process. Employees who are judged by training coordinators to have had sufficient prior training in school or through experience in another job may complete the assessments and advance to the next level, based on locally agreed-upon criteria. Draft assessment questions and protocols were carefully piloted at six agencies to identify and remedy potential weaknesses. At all levels, the purpose of assessments is to support success in learning and assist technicians in mastering the skills required in their jobs. As the title of TCRP Project E-07 emphasizes, the purpose of the entire system is “Building for Success.” The goal of assessment is to assist technicians in learning their craft. A technician who successfully completes the written assessment at the 100 level will be granted status as a Qualified Rail Vehicle Apprentice Technician. At the 200 and 300 levels, a technician may choose to pursue single or multiple qualification tracks within his or her work specialization. For 200 level topics, a technician who successfully completes the pair of written and hands-on assessments will be granted status as a Qualified Rail Vehicle Technician in the particular topic, for example, Qualified Rail Vehicle Technician in Couplers. A technician who obtains all 12 qualifications at the 200 level will be granted status as a Qualified Rail Vehicle Journeyperson. At the 300 level, a candidate who successfully com- pletes hands-on assessment in one area will be granted status as a Qualified Rail Vehicle Master Technician in that area, for example, Qualified Rail Vehicle Master Technician in HVAC. Technicians may choose to pursue single or multiple qualification tracks based on their work specialization. A technician who obtains all 12 qualifications at the 300 level will be granted status as a Qualified Rail Vehicle Master Technician. All assessments will be provided when needed at the request of local training programs rather than on a predetermined national schedule. A comprehensive web-based database system has been developed for tracking local training course completion, enrollment and completion of standardized national assessments, and achievement of national qualification status by rail vehicle technicians. Rail technicians who wish to participate in the national qualification program may create an online profile at the Rail Vehicle Qualification website. Moving Forward The completion of TCRP Project E-07 is not the end, but rather an important milestone in the transit industry’s development of a complete system of qualification. This project has broken important new ground for transit’s emerging industrywide system of qualification, including in-depth tools for building effective mentoring; a credential management system for tracking the qualification experience of technicians across the industry; and a jointly developed set of assessments, both written and hands-on, to confirm that technicians have developed the necessary knowledge and skills. The first step the industry can take toward implementing this new system is for existing local transit rail car apprenticeships to align themselves with the new framework for apprenticeship developed under TCRP Project E-07 and approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. Another

6opportunity for moving forward is to engage with individual agencies, or groups of agencies, that are ready to enhance the quality of their technicians’ skills. The next chapter in developing a complete system of rail car training and apprenticeship will be the establishment of a transit rail car training consortium with a focus on training rail car training instructors and mentors to use the curriculum, classroom courseware, and on-the-job learning modules for effective qualification of the next generation of rail vehicle technicians.