Transportation Training Resources: A Summary of Fee-for-Service Courses Available to International Counterparts at the Training Institutes and Technology Centers of the U.S. Department of Transportation

摘要

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is charged with the planning, management and oversight of one of the largest and most complex transportation systems in the world. The U.S. transportation system annually provides over 4.9 trillion passenger miles of travel and 3.8 trillion ton miles of domestic freight generated by 281 million people, 7.1 million business establishments and 88 thousand government units. The system includes 3.9 million miles of public roads, 122 thousand miles of major railroads and 26 thousand miles of navigable waterways served by 321 ports. It includes over 5 thousand public-use airports serving 630 million passengers annually, 800 public transit operators serving urban areas and 300 transit operators serving rural areas. Within this organization, a dedicated staff of almost 60,000 DOT employees carries out the Department's broad mandate. Not surprisingly, an extensive knowledge base has been developed across the spectrum of transportation modes over the years. A need to perpetuate and continually upgrade this expertise has been long recognized. To ensure that DOT employees are optimally trained to execute their mission, and to further disseminate this knowledge to our partners at the state and local levels, DOTs modal administrations operate dedicated educational institutes with diverse and specialized curricula, focusing on best transportation planning, operation and oversight practices. In addition, several specialized technology centers provide research and development and technology assistance functions, and are often a source of more specialized training and technical assistance. Each of the DOT training institutes and centers has its own mandate and operates independently from the others, but the programs, viewed as a whole, offer a comprehensive and extensive curriculum a virtual 'University of Transportation'.