Community Transportation

intensives

Delivering Essential Information

Based on your recommendations, we’ve developed a menu of intensive training sessions on the industry’s most pivotal topics. These sessions do not come with the standard EXPO 25 registration. Add one (or more!) to your EXPO registration to take full advantage of EXPO 25’s training opportunities.

Note: You must have purchased an intensive to attend an intensive. Proof of purchase is required for attendance. Click here to register for intensives or to add intensives to an existing EXPO registration. Click here for pricing sheet.

One-Day Classes, Monday, June 2

Succession Planning - Preparing for Future Success

Time: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Instructor: Caryn Souza
Room: Palm Room 5
Your agency’s success depends on its ability to identify, retain and prepare future leaders. Preparations must go beyond simply staffing positions that become vacant. Effective succession planning is a process of identifying, assessing, developing talent and knowledge transfer that ensure continuity throughout your agency at both the senior leadership level and throughout your agency. This interactive session will have you come away with the assessment tools, templates and an action plan needed to strengthen and support the overall capacity of your organization. This course geared to senior leaders and human resource directors.

Transit Marketing Tools for this Brave New World

Time: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Instructor: Selena Barlow
Room: Palm Room 6
A transit agency’s communications with customers increasingly occur on line. This intensive will address the key ways in which transit systems can market their services digitally – with customer focused websites, mobile information apps, effective use of social media and digital advertising and virtual outreach. A transit agency’s website is often the potential customer’s first interaction with the system. It needs to clearly and quickly answer the many questions that a first-time rider has, while also meeting the information needs of long-time users. During these times of rapidly changing services, it needs to be a source for up to the minute information. Mobile Apps such as Google Maps, Transit and Moovit make using transit as easy as driving and allow potential users to decide when transit is the optimal travel mode. They are the first step in moving towards MaaS (Mobility as a Service). Social media is a tool that allows transit agencies to engage directly with existing riders, letting them know what to expect from day to day, while digital and social media advertising can be used to reach new audiences. Also, video meetings and events have become a way to maintain relationships with important stakeholders or rider groups. The intensive will address how each of these tools can be used to maintain and build transit ridership, what they can and can’t do, and how they fit into the overall transit marketing toolkit.

One-Day Class, Tuesday, June 3

Building a Sustainable Workforce: Driver Recruitment and Retention

Time: 9:00 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Instructor: Caryn Souza
Room: Palm Room 5
You know that drivers are the front-line representatives for your agency. So what can transit leaders do to address the current driver shortage? Organizational awareness, executive support, and effective employee relations are critical factors impacting your service and are key in any effort to address driver shortages. There's a direct correlation between the effort and attention that’s put into all aspects of employee retention and the need for driver recruitment. Throughout this interactive one-day session, you’ll learn about all aspects of driver recruitment and retention with the focus on building a sustainable driver workforce that engages the best people with the right attitude, which ultimately leads to job satisfaction and reduced employee turnover. Also, you’ll have the necessary tools to develop a working plan that outlines tasks and action items focused on developing and maintaining a successful driver recruitment and retention program.

Leadership, Safety & Culture for Small Urban and Large Rural Transit Operators

Time: 9:00 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Instructor:Tom Eser, Principal Transit Safety & Training Instructor, Oceans Transit LLC.
Room: Palm Room 6
This one-day workshop is planned to provide small urban and large rural transit professionals with real-world tools to improve safety performance, increase leadership effectiveness, and cultivate a culture that supports safe, reliable operations. The session is structured to meet the realities of agencies with limited resources, wide service areas, and evolving staff roles. Participants will engage in a high-energy, scenario-based experience designed to support both learning and reflection. Each segment is grounded in real operational challenges and focused on producing solutions that can be applied immediately at the agency level. The workshop will feature scenario-based learning, a method I use passionately to foster real-world understanding and strong participant engagement.

Two-Day Class, June 2 and June 3

Passenger 8.0- Assistance Safety and Sensitivity (PASS) Train-the-Trainer

Time: Monday: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m; Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Instructors: Joe Seitz and Mike Watts
Room: Pacific H&I
Updated in 2025 with all new videos and new content. The PASS 8.0 Train-the-Trainer Certification Program ensures that community transportation drivers have current expertise in passenger assistance techniques and sensitivity skills appropriate for serving persons with disabilities. This program certifies PASS trainers who can then train drivers. Some of the advantages of offering the PASS certification program is the ability to reduce organizational liability; comprehensive, up-to-date training on the assistance drivers should be providing to passengers with special needs; intensive emergency situation training; certification oversight provided by national leaders in the community transportation field; and updates for all participants on relevant regulatory changes. The certification is valid for three years.

Certified Community Transit Supervisor (CCTS)

Time: Monday: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m; Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m
Instructor: Dan Mulraney
Room: Palm Room 1
This certification incorporates a wide variety of skills necessary to successfully manage front-line employees and an online self-paced prerequisite course. The course includes discussion and exercises that includes defining the supervisor’s role, succeeding as a new supervisor, communicating effectively, leading your team, coaching and counseling, conflict management and decision making, and transit supervisor responsibilities. The certification is valid for three years.

Preparing for the Certified Community Transit Manager (CCTM) and Certified Transit Program Administrator (CTPA) Exam

Time: Monday: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m; Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m
Instructor: Chris Zeilinger
Room: Palm Room 2
Prepare for our industry’s professional management exam and gain a fresh overview of all the key ingredients of effective transit management while broadening your knowledge base and building your professional skills. CCTM status marks the highest performance and efficiency attainable in the community transportation industry; it is proof of the ability to manage a comprehensive and dynamic community transportation system. For those state agency personnel who work in our industry, CTPA certification affords states’ highest caliber public servants with recognition for their knowledge and accomplishments in working with public and community transportation grants programs. The CCTM Application or CTPA Application must be completed and will be reviewed before the course begins and upon successful completion of the exam, the certification is valid for three years.

Professional Dispatching and Scheduling (PDS)

Time: Monday: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m; Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m
Instructor: Kelly Shawn
Room: Palm Room 4
Effective dispatching can make or break a community transportation organization. In its mission to ensure the effectiveness and viability of community transportation organizations, this training is designed for demand response operations. The PDS training program provides skills to increase expertise in developing improved communication and working relationships between the reservations, scheduling and dispatching functions. The workshop covers service to people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act, customer service skills, best practices of the Reservationist, Scheduler and Dispatcher as they work together to build efficient trips and meet customer needs, and the central role of the Dispatcher in any emergency situation. This certification is valid for three years.

Vehicle Maintenance Management and Compliance

Time: Monday: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m; Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m
Instructor: Halsey King
Room: Pacific F
For over 25 years, the Vehicle Maintenance Management and Compliance (VMMC) has trained thousands of mechanics at rural, small urban and specialized mobility providers, connecting them with the right resources to keep their buses in service. This program is designed for managers and technicians who operate/maintain rural and complimentary vans, cutaway paratransit and buses (i.e., less than 30-foot length) to improve the maintenance oversight of fleets of smaller transit vehicles while adding a layer of testing, certification and performance quality. Master Trainer, Halsey King, SAE provides unique insight into fleet tire, fuel and parts purchasing, as well as fleet management, labor allocation and warranty recovery. This certification is valid for three years.

Financial Management for Transit Agencies

Time: Monday: 10:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m; Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m
Instructor: A.T. Stoddard
Room: Palm Room 3
In today’s financial management you cannot afford to be without top-notch financial management skills. You must know your true costs of providing service and be able to track those costs and manage your cash flow. Learn how to use financial information, operations data, and proven financial strategies to plan, develop, and implement your transit system objectives. Learn what data to collect and monitor to ensure success and to evaluate potential changes in service – whether it is new service, service enhancements, or reductions in service. This session will provide tools that any transit manager or supervisor can use with existing data and financial reports.

The Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA) and its members believe that mobility is a basic human right. From work and education to life-sustaining health care and human services programs to shopping and visiting with family and friends, mobility directly impacts quality of life.