Introduction and Research Approach -- Findings -- Management Profile for Maintaining a Qualified Workforce -- Conclusions and Suggested Research.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis Report 323: Recruiting and Retaining Individuals in State Transportation Agencies examines various state and Canadian province departments of transportation (DOT)employee recruiting and retention strategies, and highlights those practices that might have the greatest potential for success and implementation in other DOTs.

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 142: Vehicle Operator Recruitment, Retention, and Performance in ADA Complementary Paratransit Operations provides guidance for understanding the relationships that influence and enhance operator recruitment, retention, and performance in Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) complementary paratransit services. Appendixes to TCRP Report 142 were published electronically as TCRP Web-Only Document 50: Survey Instrument, Productivity Charts, and Interview Protocol for Case Studies for TCRP Report 142.

TRB Special Report 275 - The Workforce Challenge: Recruiting, Training, and Retaining Qualified Workers for Transportation and Transit Agencies calls upon surface transportation agencies, the private sector, educational institutions, unions, and employees, to establish training as a key priority. The report recommends that this broad coalition work to expand existing federal and academic resources, create an institutional focus for the issue, and establish human resources management as a strategic function within the transportation community.Special Report 275 Summary

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 148: Practical Resources for Recruiting Minorities for Chief Executive Officers at Public Transportation Agencies provides strategies to recruit minorities for chief executive officer (CEO) positions and offers resources to assist governing boards of public transportation agencies in the recruitment of minority CEOs. The report also assesses the transit industry's recruitment processes for CEOs and provides a case for diversity that documents the benefits of minorities in public transportation leadership positions. The report also describes strategies for retaining CEOs at public transportation agencies.

[This is] "a guidebook that addresses contemporary issues in workforce development, retention, and attraction, and public transportation image management. [It] is separated into modules that may be used independently or together [...]. Information across the modules is in the form of example successful programs, state-of-the-art initiatives, industry effective practices, and directions to implement and measure those practices. The results of this research may be used by human resource professionals and transportation policy makers in implementing more effective human resource business-planning processes"--Foreword.

TRB¿s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 126: Leveraging ITS Data for Transit Market Research: A Practitioner¿s Guidebook examines intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and Transit ITS technologies currently in use, explores their potential to provide market research data, and presents methods for collecting and analyzing these data. The guidebook also highlights three case studies that illustrate how ITS data have been used to improve market research practices.

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 139: Guidebook for Recruiting, Developing, and Retaining Transit Managers for Fixed-Route Bus and Paratransit Systems explores resources for fixed-route bus, general public demand response, and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) paratransit systems resources to assist in the recruitment, development, and retention of managers. The Guidebook is accompanied by CRP-CD-77, which provides Model Job Descriptions for 32 broad job titles that indicate the structure and content for job descriptions for manager jobs. The CD-ROM is also available for download from TRB's website as an ISO image. A separate report presenting the research methodology, the results of a literature review, and the results from focus groups held with 15 other non-transit public and private sector organizations used in production of TRCP Report 139 is available online.

The purpose of this project was to provide transportation agencies with strategies and resources to meet their needs for attracting, recruiting, and retaining transportation system operations and management (SOM) staff. The research described herein considers the potential supply and demand for SOM skills and staffing; the actions transportation agencies may take to attract, recruit, develop, and retain skilled staff with SOM capabilities; and the tools that are available or may be developed to assist agencies in attracting and recruiting skilled staff in this area. SOM draws on the knowledge of many disciplines including, for example, traffic engineering, intelligent transportation systems, maintenance, emergency response, traffic operations, traffic safety, incident management, performance measurement, and system planning applied in a comprehensive approach to increase the efficiency and safety of the transportation system. SOM encompasses interactions among transportation modes and between the transportation system and other functions such as emergency management, public safety, and outreach. In this report, we provide information regarding the methodology, results, recommended action plans, and potential future research directions in relation to this project.

This report of the Transportation Research Board will be of interest to transit staff interested in implementing leadership development initiatives at their agencies. Current practices, major issues, trends, and innovations related to the use of corporate culture as the driver in hiring, developing, evaluating, and retaining a leadership team, within and outside the transit industry were documented for this synthesis. The report discusses the state of the practice in leadership recruitment, development, evaluation, and retention. It reports on innovative approaches to the problems faced in todays work environment in transit and other industries. This synthesis also covers the manner in which corporate culture affects the hiring, development, evaluation, and retention of the top management team.