This synthesis documents light rail maintenance staffing practices and factors important in their development at U.S. transit agencies. It covers the areas of maintenance functions, new light rail start-up, and management in attempting to give better insight into the variables affecting maintenance staffing. This topic is of interest to transit managers of existing light rail transit (LRT) operations and those involved in the planning or implementing of new LRT lines. It is also of interest to agency directors or general managers and executive or board members who need to understand how the industry accomplishes system maintenance. A survey was conducted to gather feedback from U.S. transit agency staff working in LRT maintenance. Based on survey results, topical case studies were developed to highlight specific policies and practices at four U.S. agencies—San Diego (CA) Trolley, Inc.; Utah Transit Authority; Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet); and the Greater Cleveland (OH) Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). These combine with supplemental information gleaned from FTA’s National Transit Database to update and expand on the operating characteristics of U.S. LRT systems. A panel of experts in the subject area guided the work of organizing and evaluating the collected data and reviewed the final synthesis report. A consultant was engaged to collect and synthesize the information and to write the report. Both the consultant and members of the oversight panel are acknowledged on the title page. This synthesis is an immediately useful document that records the practices that were acceptable within the limitations of the knowledge available at the time of its preparation. As progress in research and practice continues, new knowledge will be added to that now at hand. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting