CHAPTER 2
Bus Operator Workforce Needs Assessment
Workforce planning encompasses both macro-level decisions about workforce assignments based on factors like the overall size of a transit agency’s workforce and hiring needs, and micro-level decisions about how to staff bus routes based on day of week or time of day.49 Transit agencies meet bus operator needs by employing full-time regular bus operators, part-time bus operators, and extraboard bus operators. Between these job categories, transit agencies strive to retain enough workers to avoid service lapses, avoid paying wages when work is not performed, and keep the number of overtime wages low.50
2.1 Themes
Integrating Workforce Development into Strategic Plans and Broader Service Goals
Insufficient workforce planning can affect a transit agency’s broader goals by limiting its ability to develop future applicant skills, increase the number of applicants, screen applicants, promote existing staff, and brand the organization.58 When hiring managers are aware of overall transit agency strategic goals, they are more capable of finding the right candidates to fill positions to support those goals.59 Without workforce plans, hiring managers may end up hiring individuals who are a “bad fit” with the organization or role.60
According to NCHRP Report 685, some organizations do not perform workforce planning or forecasting because of transit agency limitations on the number of positions that can be filled.61 Others estimate the need for bus operators only when they are already experiencing the need to fill work assignments or pay overtime to many bus operators.62
One stakeholder interviewee for this research expressed that their transit agency’s ability to provide service and thus, all transit agency operations, are linked to how many operators are needed and how many are actually employed. Other interviewees suggested that elements like scheduling, the use of part-time employees, reliance on vehicles that don’t require CDLs in rural areas, and partnerships with companies to lease vehicles rather than the transit agency owning them outright were all listed as factors that influence how a transit agency hires, trains, and retains its workforce.
Data on Current and Past Workforce and Service Patterns
Quantitative information collected from human resources, service, and planning departments can help to provide a better understanding of a transit agency’s workforce needs, but many transit agencies expressed that this information is minimal, nonexistent, or not shared strategically between the two departments and other relevant entities.
Information like turnover rates and workforce demographics (e.g., median age of the workforce) is helpful for developing recruitment strategies. However, this information is not always collected as widely as needed or shared between internal departments.63 Likewise, service and planning departments can provide historical data on things like the number of bus operators that call off per day to human resources to help anticipate how many bus operators are needed to cover those positions.
Nearly 50 percent of survey respondents in this study indicated that their transit agencies do not conduct workforce needs assessments for bus operators (Figure 2). Among the 29 percent of the survey respondents who indicated that their transit agencies do conduct workforce needs assessments, the average rating of effectiveness for these surveys was 5.09 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the least effective and 10 being the most effective.
The types of strategies that survey respondents indicated their transit agencies use to determine workforce needs are the following:
- Regular (e.g., on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis) employer surveys (employer, employee, and rider);
- Regular meetings where drivers can voice concerns, opinions, and needs;
- Interviews with drivers pursuing employment elsewhere to determine why they are leaving;
- Business management software;
- Computer modeling/forecasting (e.g., of regional population growth expectancy, of staffing needs based on fixed-route and contracted service, operator needs based on turnover rates);
- Succession planning or other regular review (e.g., on an annual basis) of employees eligible for retirement;
- Hired firm conducts and scores employee engagement responses;
- Reviews of short- and long-term staffing plans;
- Monitor industry trends; and
- Cross-departmental absence and attrition review (e.g., regular meetings between human resources, operations, and planning staff to review current and future staffing needs).
Some sample survey responses are the following:
- “Headcount is generally identified through the service delivery information generated compared to our total number of routes. We have used traditionally a 25 percent extra board to fill open work, planned and unplanned absences. However, recently that has been expanded to closer to 33 percent as a desired percentage. We do track operators entering and leaving service on a weekly basis and produce a monthly report. When we reduced workforce and then started to expand, we also created a projection based on past attrition what our recruiting numbers needed to be to remain at current headcount. Monthly we also produce a workforce Report that looks at current headcount versus budgeted headcount and the vacancy percentage.”
- “We currently use a modeling tool developed in Excel to forecast attrition and necessary class size and training fallout based on past experiences along with HR [human resources] data on retirement eligibility and the labor market in our region.”
One stakeholder interviewee said that succession planning may not be happening as broadly as it should be to anticipate workforce needs. Succession plans often focus on executive-level positions, but these plans are not applied to frontline workers.
A basic way to calculate bus operator workforce needs is to divide the total number of service hours per year by the number of hours a full-time operator works in a year. Agencies described
in the case studies use a more complex variation of this formula (or another formula altogether), with different variables taken into account depending on the unique structure and needs of each agency.
Forecasting Workforce Needs in the COVID-19 Era
The COVID-19 pandemic may also have implications for workforce needs assessments. Service design assessments are important to the process of anticipating future workforce needs, and one stakeholder interviewee suggested that transit agencies would likely design service differently after the pandemic compared to what was done previously. For example, different forms of community outreach during the planning process and reliance on different private delivery partners are the types of factors that could influence service design and thus, workforce needs.
Some transit agencies in the focus group indicated that extended unemployment benefits offered under the 2020 CARES Act responding to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in fewer applicants among those who are otherwise eligible. Despite open positions and the need for more bus operators, many CDL drivers who could fill bus operator positions are not applying. This larger economic factor makes it challenging for transit agencies to anticipate when eligible bus operators will once again apply for open positions. Many transit agencies reported in the focus group discussions that they were also behind in their usual workforce assessment efforts and in “catch-up” mode because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In some cases, in response to COVID-19, transit agencies added new processes to their workforce needs assessment protocols. For example, a focus group participant from New Jersey Transit indicated that the transit agency assessed the COVID-19 cases among its workforce as part of its workforce and service planning efforts.
Addressing Transit-Agency-Wide Priorities Across Multiple Departments
Service planning and workforce planning alike are driven by transit agencies’ annual budgets. Thus, medium- and long-term planning should involve coordination across departments such as planning, scheduling, training, budget, and human resources departments. Focus group participants indicated that factors like planned service hours, planned service changes, estimations of attrition and staff shortages, operator leave averages, and retirement projections can all be used to inform future workforce planning efforts.
Conversely, some transit agencies cited poor coordination between departments as having a negative effect on workforce assessment processes. For example, service planning may not include projections generated by human resources departments or the needs of training departments. Focus group participants indicated that better coordination among these departments would improve workforce needs assessment processes.
Some transit agencies view workforce needs assessments as an ongoing process to develop employees throughout their careers rather than something that is conducted periodically to measure future needs. Strategies aimed at training the existing workforce can help grow the talent required for future workforce needs, so many transit agencies view investments in training and development as a way to ensure that talented employees are available to meet future service demands.
Union Involvement in Workforce Development Priorities
Unions can provide a stabilizing force in a potential wave of changes to the workforce when deliberately included in conversations about workforce planning. According to one interviewee,
transit agencies should work with unions to take more stock in the professionalism of the workforce, stating “it’s not just about representing the worker, but also the trade.”
Despite the potential benefits of incorporating unions early and often into workforce planning discussions, some industry experts expressed that unions rarely get involved in conversations about obtaining an appropriate number of bus operators. In some cases, collective bargaining agreements may place stipulations on changes to staffing initiatives, for example, the rate at which promotions can occur.64
2.2 Forward-Thinking Approaches
The following approaches were identified in the research and stood out as valuable ideas that transit agencies can consider with respect to addressing workforce assessment needs.
Assess Current Situation to Determine Staffing Needs
AC Transit (Oakland, California) and Metro Transit (Minnesota) work with planning and scheduling departments to determine staffing numbers needed to provide the scheduled level of service. Metro Transit also analyzes peak bus counts for upcoming service plans and builds in extra bus operators as a buffer. C-Tran (Clark County, Washington) hires coach operators based on budget, planned service hours with consideration for attrition and estimated percentages of staff shortages, operator leave averages, and any planned expansion.
Develop Workforce Staffing Models
San Diego Transit and Utah Transit Authority forecast staffing levels from the transit agency’s historical experience. These models often take information like job attendance and turnover and assess it against a workforce demand model informed by vehicle revenue hours.65
In the case of Utah Transit Authority, human resources and operations departments work together to identify a workforce planning model formula that includes data about current staff, minimum staff required, expected absences, and turnover. The formula can include other information tailored to a transit agency’s needs, and the transit agency can define the variables in the formula in a way that suits its operations. For Utah Transit Authority, “minimum staff requirements” were quantified in terms of runs, and the combination of a morning and evening run is equal to one bus operator. From this, the transit agency could use the model to assess hypothetical situations to better understand operator staffing needs. These models must be updated on a regular basis.66
Determine Optimal Workforce with Forecasting
DART developed an Excel-based tool to determine general and extraboard workforce sizing needs. The tool uses data that most transit agencies already collect and is formulated in a way that different audiences (e.g., executive staff, human resources, and hiring managers) can read and understand the instrument.67
2.3 Resources
- Cronin, C. B., A. Alexander, E. Majumdar, C. Thompson, B. Wolf, R. Lazaro, and V. Lazaro. 2018. TCRP Research Report 194: Knowledge Management Resource to Support Strategic Workforce Development for Transit Agencies. Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
- U.S. DOT. 2008. “Human Capital Management: Guide to Workforce Planning.” Washington, DC.
