Workpackage 3 - Needed abilities for Drivers and Trainers and Development of an Innovative Curriculum
The innovative curriculum produced in this stage of the ISSTE project, and named “SAFETY AND SECURITY TRAINING CURRICULUM” includes special modules for public transport drivers’ training, which emphasize on improving safety and security in surface public transportation system. The 6 modules of the Safety and Security Driving Training contain only those elements considered being very important for a future safety driving in the public transport service. They were designed with the contribution of all ISSTE partners, taking into consideration all innovative aspects concerning safety and security issues. The proposed innovative curriculum focused on Safety and Security comprises 6 modules and includes only the elements regarding the specific items that will be assimilated in the training process. This curriculum has the role to improve the driver’s skills and performances. The aims of this training curriculum should be the increasing of the safety and the consciousness while driving a public transport vehicle and to help the adoption of these procedures in case of risk and also to prevent mistakes while driving.

Workpackage 4: New Accreditation / Certification Methodologies, Standards, Quality Assessment
In this work package, the research has been focused on the most adequate and innovative methodologies for accreditation / certification in training, along with quality assessment in safety and security, for the public surface transport. Using results achieved in previously developed WP2 (framework analysis, key performance indicators) and WP3 / WP 5 (testing of new training curricula), the present document integrates best practice and further develops the research, providing a set of measures aimed at improving the quality in Safety and Security training.

1. Objectives of research

The main objective of the present workpackage was to establish a common and efficient framework for the accreditation and/or certification in surface transport training, according to available standards. Another goal was to find out the best methodologies for quality assessment, considering both the educational process flow and the public transport process, as a prerequisite for an overall increase of transport company performances. The effects of this improvement in training and the work environment are expected to have a large impact, resulting in better productivity and higher safety and security for the public transport. According to the procedures presented, the training and quality control departments from the public transport companies will be able to instruct, coordinate and to ensure a high level of knowledge regarding elements of safety and security to the drivers, to cope with risk situations, to prevent and reduce the number of errors in driving the public transport vehicles. Alternative techniques for quality assessment and continuous improvement of the training processes were also analysed and the innovative methodologies presented here aim at further increasing the quality of the surface public transport.

2. Expected results of the research

The recommendations resulting from this research are intended to serve as a guideline for building up a complete, recognised and accredited training department in a public transport company. The advantages that might be obtained employing the recommended procedures are expected to be: Documented accreditation of the public transport training departments, and certification of the S&S curricula - very helpful for externalising the activities of the training departments in the public transport companies, Official recognition of the quality and professionalism of the public transport drivers (regarding safety and security in surface public transport) – helping the social integration of all personnel that had graduated the S&S training courses. Conformity and harmonisation with international, EU-level, national standards and applicable local regulation for quality in education and work; An innovative methodology for quality control, with several checkpoints, both in the training process and in the work activities, helping to increase productivity, to reduce risks and to build better procedures for granting salaries to employees, for establishing a close control of the activities and of the social factors; Building a community network of training centres, and a common database – a premise for a better usage of the know-how and best practice in the domain of safety and security for the public surface transport etc.

Workpackage 5: Quality Testing, Implementation and Evaluation of Results
In this workpackage, the partners envisaged in the project proposal (RATB and Atac) have implemented and evaluated the innovative procedures outlined on WP3, through the delivery of the specific trainings for Public Surface Transport (acronym PST) drivers, following the two different approaches designed in WP3. In fact, one of the most valuable outputs of the WP3 was the capacity to design an innovative Safety and Security training procedure able to be flexible and adaptable to the different standard of training methodologies of the European community of reference. In particular, the procedure foresees two different training formulas:

1. One approach can be the implementation of this Safety and Security Training Curriculum separately from the original / basic Driver Training Curricula, at the end of the training period, after testing the driver (learning test) in order to be sure that he/ she has acquired the minimum knowledge’s and abilities compulsory for the public transport drivers.

2. The other approach can be the implementation of this Safety and Security Training Curriculum within the Driver Training Curricula, integrating the elements of the S&S Training Curriculum to the basic training.

In conclusion, we can affirm that this workpackage confirmed the appropriateness of the previous project outputs. Methodologies and processes developed were coherent with the project mission and produced a positive result in terms of improvement of drivers S&S competences. What is more important, the innovative curriculum is flexible and adaptable to companies’ internal training procedures. We consider it as the most important result, in that it ensures the real sustainability of the training proposal and, consequently, the operative chance to replicate it. As expected, the test showed some areas of improvement. The report clearly mentions these output in that we consider it as the key aspect to help the training customization for PT players. In fact, analyzing the results of the curriculum implementation, other public transport companies can find a new way of tackling and improving safety and security in surface public transport. The innovations delivered may be imitated, transferred, adopted and implemented by other public transport players (including companies, local and national authorities, legislators, driving schools, etc) according to specific needs. We can conclude that, the professional training process is very important in order to obtain a service that is viewed in terms of safety, reliability, influencing the inter-modal choice of urban travellers and increasing the relative share of public transport services utilization.

Final Conference in Rome
Final Conference Report