Causes of Mismatch between Ideal Transportation Workforce Skills vs. In-Practice Sought-after Skills, and Strategies to Close the Gap

In the technology driven transformation in transportation industry, the literature emphasizes the need for transportation agencies to recruit workforces with skills that can adapt to the rapid changes in the industry. Researchers argue that digitalization and autonomy fueled by the technology innovation will transform the transportation workforce both in numbers and new necessary skills (i.e., “digitalization literate workforce”) relevant to the increasing utilization of automated equipment and tablets, big-data analytics and sophisticated decision support systems, connected and automated vehicles, shared mobility and electric vehicles. Researchers also emphasize that an increasingly stretched workforce can face difficulties in absorbing the changes due to the fast development of new technologies. In contrast with the literature’s emphasis on the changing landscape for necessary workforce skillset, the preliminary findings of the REAT Center project (“Identification of Workforce Skills Sought by DOTs: What do job ads look for?”) indicate that the existing job advertisements for transportation industry do not necessarily reflect the evolving needs of the industry. This finding indicates that there is a mismatch between the workforce skillset that the transportation agencies are projected to need, and the skillsets that are sought in job advertisements. Considering the importance of job ads in recruitment, there is a need to address this mismatch. The mismatch can stem from various sources. The transportation companies compete with more resourceful technology and start-up companies to recruit and/or employ workforce that are well-versed in emerging topics such as autonomous systems, sensors, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. In the meantime, the technology driven transformation of the industry does not happen overnight, hence the traditional skills are still crucially needed and valuable. Given the already competitive recruitment environment and shortage of middle-skill trade workers across the industries, the transportation agencies may be forced to seek on-the-job training for their workforce needs related to technological skills. There is also a chicken-egg situation within the hiring process. About one-half of the state transportation agencies depend significantly on consultants for key technical positions such as systems engineering, information technology, and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) device maintenance, because agencies face difficulty in filling those positions. Hence, the transportation agencies may not have the in-house expertise to narrow down the necessary skillsets for the job ads, or to vet the applicants properly. All these factors (and others) likely contribute to the aforementioned mismatch in different combinations for each agency. This project aims to rank those causes in order to device effective solutions.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $66,932.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552348321

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

  404 Foote/Hilyer
  Tallahassee, FL  United States  32307
• Project Managers:

  Moses, Ren

• Performing Organizations:

  Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

  404 Foote/Hilyer
  Tallahassee, FL  United States  32307

  Stony Brook University

  100 Nicolls Road
  Stony Brook, NY  United States  11794
• Principal Investigators:

  Yazici, Anil

• Start Date: 20240601
• Expected Completion Date: 20251231
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Education and training; Information technology; Technological innovations; Transportation engineering; Workforce development
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Education and Training; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01955524
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Rural Safe, Efficient, and Advanced Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552348321
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: May 21 2025 12:58PM