Rebuilding Rail Workforce“Baby Steps” to Modern Rail Education and Training

Pasi Lautala, PhD, P.E.Director, Rail Transportation Program

ptlautal@mtu.edu906-487-3547

Outline

• What does industry need and want?• Initiatives to resource development• On-line tool for (High Speed) Rail Education

and Training

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

Workforce Demand

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

Critical Skills

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

Industry – University Collaboration

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

Extensive Industry Training

• Class I railroads– Face-to-face and

online training– 80 courses by Union

Pacific only• Contractor

Orientation– Collaborative safety

training

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

AREMA Initiatives

• Student Chapters– From one to ten over past three years

• Mentoring program taking first steps• Railroad Engineering and Education Symposium

(REES)– Biannual industry-university collaboration since 2008– For university professors– Basic educational material for rail

transportation/engineering

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

• National Tier-1 University Transportation Center

• Central Theme: Shared Rail Corridors

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

(High Speed) Rail Learning System• Expanding demand for

passenger rail– Limited domestic expertise

(especially for higher speeds)• Geographically dispersed

audience and stakeholders with limited size

• Partial solution – Taking advantage of on-line technologies?

• http://www.mtti.mtu.edu/highspeedrail/

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce

HSRLS Concept

Presentation Title: 10

Student, Employees, Public- Training- Marketing- Classwork- Research

Instructors/EDU- Instructional

materials- Demonstrations- Grading

Industry- Regulatory- Reporting- Workforce

development

WWW

Presentation Title: Rebuilding Rail Workforce