We are seeking input from Highway Maintenance professionals on the transformational technologies impacting the field today and in the future. Survey results will be used to structure a discussion at the workshop, “National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative Stakeholder Engagement,” at the TRB 97th Annual Meeting. Survey is open to all regardless of ability to attend the workshop.
TRB Workshop 873: National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative Stakeholder Engagement
Topic: The impact of disruptive/transformational technologies in transportation on the workplace and workforce
Thursday, January 11, 2018
8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Convention Center
Workshop Description
The pressures of technological advancement within the personal and freight mobility spaces present employers and workforce development practitioners with the challenge of adapting worker skillsets to have the competencies necessary to be effective in a dynamic workplace.
To address this challenge, the Federal Highway Administration Center for Transportation Workforce Development funded an initiative to identify the education, curriculum, training, and experiential learning required for post-secondary institutions to effectively deliver skilled and technically competent transportation workers for the next 15 years. Known as the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative, this effort brings together academic and industry leadership to identify future workforce needs and how education and training at the technical school, community college, and university levels can be best designed to address those for the long term. As these discipline leaders work to create a framework to test implementation strategies at the post-secondary level, how can we design pathways that will succeed in supporting a future positive path for the transportation sector? This workshop will set the context for the project and invite in depth opportunities for practitioners and educators to provide their insights, feedback and perspectives on this effort.
Workshop Agenda
Introduction
Setting the Context
Three guests will lay out perspectives on how transportation is radically changing in the coming decades, technology disruption is changing the way the industry does business and how all of this will require a differently trained and educated workforce.
- Eric Plosky, Transportation Planning Division at the Volpe Center
- Terry Bills, ESRI
- Eric Rensel, Gannett Flemming / National Operations Center of Excellence
Q&A
Response Panel Discussion
The National Network for the Transportation Workforce centers will lead a discussion of how this future casting is reflected in the research results being conducted across five disciplines (Engineering, Safety, Environment, Operations, and Planning) and what it means as they seek to build new competency models, underlying critical career pathways for expanding occupations in each of the disciplines.
- Tom Obrien (CSULB)
- Stephanie Ivey (University of Memphis)
- Steve Albert (Montana State)
- Teresa Adams (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
- Glenn McRae (University of Vermont)
Q&A
Working Session
Break-out groups by discipline: Environment, Engineering, Operations, Planning, Safety
Information Sharing
What have we learned in each discipline?
- How are transformational technologies impacting how we teach, learn and practice within the discipline?
- What are the most effective teaching and training methodologies to keep up with rapid changes in the field?
- How are employers responding to the changes in ways that they recruit, hire, on-board and provide professional development?
- How do educational programs remain current and relevant in addressing needed competencies in the field, as well as address emerging fields and innovations?
- What role does experiential learning play? What are models of experiential learning that are most successful in producing the best prepared workers?
Lead by NTCPI team leaders with special Discussants (invited).
Report Out Summation
Key take-aways to guide future implementation of effective career path design, program collaboration, targeting of key audiences of future workers, and strong engagement of employers.