In the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster, state transportation departments must maintain open transportation routes for critical response. To achieve this, personnel must receive effective emergency management training. A new report from the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), Emergency Management Training for Transportation Personnel, documented and analyzed the benefits of the interactive approach to training for adults. This information is useful for all transportation agency training departments as they design and deliver federally-mandated courses.
Principal investigator Dr. Frances Edwards and team developed an Incident Command System (ICS) course with training materials for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. They then taught that course to field personnel from the California Department of Transportation, demonstrating the value of interactive methods in training adults.
MTI’s research findings confirmed the value of using adult education strategies to create a meaningful and effective training experience for transportation personnel working in the field, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the Continuity of Operations/Continuity of Government (COOP/COG) organization. The report also demonstrates the importance of employees knowing the contents of the relevant plan and their role in the organization in advance of the training.
Dr. Edwards noted that “The resulting national policy recommendation is that state transportation agencies will benefit from adopting the principles of andragogy (especially the use of interactive training materials) in their emergency management training courses to take better advantage of the way that adults learn.” The new free ICS course and training methods will help ensure continuity of transportation operations in case of terrorist attack, natural disaster or other emergency.
The full report can be downloaded at no charge from the MTI website: http://transweb.sjsu.edu/project/1280.html
