Transportation Safety Professional Development Clearinghouse


Download Final Report

CAIT project no.: 144 RU9063

Fiscal Year: 2003/2004

Status: Final

Rutgers-CAIT Author(s): Janet Hansen, Claudia Knezek, Ali Maher

External Author(s): Wansoo Im, Vertices, Inc., Patricia Ott

Sponsor(s): NJDOT, FHWA-USDOT

Summary:

Throughout private and public work settings, employee professional development is regarded as critical to grooming future leaders and to attract and retain talented employees who will enable the company or agency to achieve its goals. Professional development is accomplished through formal education, assessments, job experience, and interpersonal relationships (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhard & Wright: 2000). Education has been identified by the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) as a 4E countermeasure for reducing roadway fatalities. There is a critical need for transportation professionals within New Jersey to continue to update and maintain their skills in order to meet the state’s safety goals. The NJ LTAP staff worked with safety managers to identify training opportunities and obstacles to training. Together they recognized the need to track the safety training progress of personnel from the transportation industry. The target solution was to develop a data base tool for the NJDOT to use in tracking state, regional, and local safety training needs and accomplishments of transportation professionals. While the tool was being developed, ongoing research was used to create a series of professional development articles published in the NJ LTAP monthly newsletter and distributed to transportation personnel throughout the state.