Current Practice of Design, Delivery and Maintenance of Online Training for Transportation Professionals at Public Agencies

Transportation officials need to address the day-to-day challenges of both traffic demands and infrastructure needs to maintain the sustainability of the existing transportation system. While participating in the decision making process, professionals from any public agency (i.e. State Department of Transportation or DOT) need diverse knowledge and dynamic skills to identify any specific points of concern. In order to make the transportation professionals efficient in their job, different public agencies offer online trainings along with the traditional instructor-led courses. These online capacity building courses augment contemporary knowledge and technical skills, which empower professionals to perform their tasks proficiently. Apart from an extensive literature review, this study compiles the outcome of the survey among 10 different state DOTs online training. In addition, this study also summarizes the results from interviewing 6 different state DOTs, of which more than 80 percent, design and develop online trainings for their employees. While outcome of the online survey has provided a general overview regarding online training practiced by state DOTs, the telephone interviews has helped to obtain detailed insight about the design considerations, delivery methods and adopted strategies for developing effective online trainings