s p e c ia l se c ti o n SUMMER SAFETY SERIES - PART THREE {Safety Training and Compliance}
Training increases safe behavior T
TAPTCO standardizes comprehensive driver training
standards and on-site ransit & safety surveys and Paratransit consulted to more than Company 200 transportation (TAPTCO), Macedonia, companies and agencies. OH, developed Jeff Cassell has been comprehensive training developing transit courses for both transit training programs for and paratransit bus more than 20 years. He operators, as well as served as vice president, a trainer certification Corporate Risk, for process. TAPTCO the Laidlaw group for President Jeff Cassell nearly 21 years. Cassell says the company can holds the FCII, Fellow customize these highly of Chartered Insurance, effective video-based Institute of England. presentations for any “Our goal was to type of transit or Materials for TAPTCO’s Paratransit Operator Development course. The company also offers courses in standardize all our paratransit bus. Transit Operator Development and the Trainer Certification Process. training processes Investing more than to the same high $500,000 to create level at every location,” he says. “We looked at all the available the courses — Transit Operator Development, Paratransit Operator training materials and could not find anything being even close Development, and Trainer Certification Process — resulted in highto high quality comprehensive, systematic, integrated materials quality video presentations that include classroom facilitator guides, we required. That is until came across the TAPTCO performance behind-the-wheel instructor guides, operator study guides and improvement company in Macedonia, which we ultimately operator training progress charts. contracted to create all our own materials.” “These courses fully prepare drivers with the basics they need Cassell, who would eventually join the company, recalls it being to provide safe and efficient service,” Cassell says. “The focus this well ahead of anything else available. “Its programs helped reduce our training places on drivers makes a significance difference in their accident frequency rate by 72 percent,” he says. “Our annual accident daily behaviors.” savings across all of Laidlaw was $58 million per year.” The Ohio Transit Risk Pool provided copies of the Transit Driver When First Group acquired Laidlaw, First Transit Services Training Program to its members. adopted the programs Laidlaw was using, asking they be changed Loss Control Services Manager Kenneth F. Reed says he found the to the First Group name for continued use. Cassell says with the transit-specific training material to be professional and effective. training programs currently in use at every location, First Transit “It is comprehensive and systematic,” he says. “It integrates a Services reported the lowest DOT accident rate he has ever seen — continual safety message into every module.” 0.29 DOT accidents per million miles. Mark G. Gardner, founder and CEO of TAPTCO, says it is the TAPTCO has also created the training programs currently first and only company dedicated solely to improving human in use for the transit management companies Veolia performance in the ground passenger transportation markets. The Transportation, MV Transportation and Keolis, as well as for development staff includes transit professionals, performance Greyhound Bus Lines. improvement experts, industrial psychologists, curriculum The sister company of TAPTCO, School Bus Safety Company, has designers and media producers. created all the training materials currently in use by over 2,600 school Prior to forming TAPTCO, Gardner held executive-level positions districts plus seven of the eight largest school bus contractors. with Progressive Casualty Insurance, where he created and managed the national Share The Road With Trucks Campaign, devised comprehensive organizational analysis protocols, underwriting
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BUSRIDE | AU G US T. 2013
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