Transit Workforce Shortage Study

Public transit providers across North America face a shortage of operators and mechanics, a crisis that has strained budgets and forced agencies to reduce service. This shortage is occurring during a period of economic instability and reshuffling exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Agencies’ ability to respond to the worker shortage has been hampered by inadequate information about its causes and effects.

The Transit Workforce Shortage Study builds a framework for APTA, its members, and its partner organizations to better understand the workforce shortage’s causes and provides best practices for recruiting, hiring, and retaining transit operations workers.

The study is comprised of two phases. The Initial Report, published in October, 2022 synthesizes the findings from Phase 1, which included a survey of transit agencies and background research into the macro causes of the shortage.

Phase 2 involved extensive outreach to public transit agencies and a subsequent survey of operations workers to characterize in detail the broader themes identified earlier. The final Synthesis Report, published in March 2023, synthesizes the findings of Phase 2 with those from Phase 1 and presents a toolkit for agencies to assess and bolster their workforce management activities