Background
While transit agencies are struggling to attract and retain operations personnel, applicants and current employees are demanding more employer-based incentives. As a result of the privileges afforded based on seniority, new operators have less desirable work schedules (i.e. fewer straight shifts and consecutive days off). This limits access to desirable shifts for new hires, which has implications for attraction to the role. In more recent years, there has been an emergence of competitive industries and roles (i.e. driving for Transportation Network Companies and Amazon) that offer more flexible work schedules. Gaining momentum is the work-home balance phenomenon, especially from employees with young children and elder-care responsibilities. In addition, job induced stresses to include fatigue, assaults from customers, adherence to the published timetable, limited break opportunities, and access to restroom and break facilities affect operator’s quality of life.
Addressing these challenges requires a review of the structure of vehicle and operator assignments, including the selection and assignment for operators, and the daily markup and dispatch of operators. Transit agencies have historically prioritized the overall efficiency and reliability of service in their scheduling and dispatching process. Now, operator satisfaction must also be prioritized to maintain necessary staffing levels. Transit agencies need to understand the work assignment factors that attract younger workers to a career in transit, as well as the factors that can attract veteran operators to take difficult work assignments that require more experience.
While the techniques and strategies to maximize the efficiency of operator schedules are well-documented, in particular through the work of computerized optimization tools that specialize in this area, there is minimal research on the effectiveness of different scheduling and dispatch approaches on service reliability and, to an even greater extent, employee satisfaction and retention. During this period of workforce shortage challenges, public transit agencies and the industry need to better understand the factors that influence the ability of transit providers to attract and retain bus and rail operators.
Synthesis Objective
The purpose of this synthesis is to identify the current strategies, practices, and results of transit agency efforts to increase operator retention through schedule design and assignment. This synthesis will identify the factors that can potentially increase transit operator job satisfaction and retention within the first years of employment and during a full career in the transit industry.
This synthesis should consider the following questions:
- What sequence of activities and what revisions to labor contract provisions are necessary to develop vehicle and operator work assignments that will attract and retain personnel?
- What incentives are necessary to encourage experienced operators to take more difficult assignments?
- What scheduling practices are available, which of those are easy to implement and which would require new labor agreements?
- What other possible adjustments to labor agreements, and labor relations overall, related to scheduling and dispatch, have an effect on employee quality of life?
Information to be Gathered
At a minimum, the contractor shall gather the following information:
- Information gathered by transit agencies on the factors that influence operator satisfaction through (i.e. employee surveys and interviews and correlations of rates of job applications or resignation letters with triggering events such as changes in wages, work rules, expiration of government benefits, or layoffs in the jurisdiction).
- Analyses conducted by transit agencies into operator preferences for shift hours, days off, types of service, incidents reported by route, derived from analysis of the order that work is selected and absence or attrition rates by service type and shift, which can be attributed to operator satisfaction with work assignments.
- Information on scheduling and dispatching initiatives and practices used or being explored by transit agencies intended to increase operator quality of life, such as:
◦ Analysis of feasibility of runtimes and resulting accuracy of layover times,
◦ Blocking and run cut strategies, including break and relief practices,
◦ Rostering, personalized rostering vs cafeteria model,
◦ Use of bonuses to attract experienced drivers to more difficult assignments,
◦ Picking/bidding practices,
◦ Selection of time off,
◦ Use of four day work weeks with longer shifts,
◦ Availability of overtime and overtime assignment policies and practices,Markup practices,
◦ Use of Part-time labor,
◦ Differences in experiences with scheduling between different occupations within transit and between fixed route and demand response operations,
◦ Easing new workers into a full time schedule through additional training routes or a schedule that rotates shifts for the first few weeks,
◦ Night work for new drivers to practice in lower traffic environment, and
◦ Relief practices and rules for instances where no relief operator is available.
- Data and or information on the availability of data about:
◦ Transit agency bus and rail operator workforce size, hiring rates, and retention rates
◦ Local workforce size and unemployment rates
◦ Local comparable job labor characteristics (job competitiveness) such as working conditions and pay levels of comparable ‘driving jobs’
How the Information will be Gathered
- Literature Review
- Survey of transit public transit agencies
- Case examples (a minimum of five, identified from the surveys)
