Author Description

Estimates indicate that more than 14 million jobs—about 11% of civilian jobs in the United States—are related to infrastructure. Transportation has the potential to be a major U.S. job creator with projections to add 417,000 net jobs from 2012 to 2022. An additional 4.2 million workers will need to be hired to fill vacancies created by people leaving the transportation workforce. Transportation workforce strategies are highly decentralized with no national standards for operations, planning, or programming. This is not necessarily a criticism because there is tremendous variation in the transportation workforce needs from state to state. However, it means there is little documentation of best practices, making it difficult to know what innovation can be transferred from state to state. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Synthesis 543: Transportation Workforce Planning and Development Strategies is a synthesis of the current state of practice associated with the implementation of transportation workforce planning and development strategies at state departments of transportation (DOTs) and associated local and tribal technical assistance programs (LTAPs/TTAPs).