Three Courses, Nationwide 

The National Transit Institute (NTI) was established in 1992 at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). In 1999, they became part of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center, housed at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. NTI is funded by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration. The FTA envisions becoming the primary provider of training, education, and related services in support of public transportation.

For more than 20 years, Urban has taught courses covering construction management, risk assessment, and quality control for transit projects. We developed these courses and were the first to teach them. Over the years, the curriculum has been revised to reflect current regulations and practices. We have secured multiple multi-year contracts for these courses.

Educating From Experience

Course 1 | Management of Transit Construction Projects 

By exploring best practices, this course aims to provide participants with a better understanding of what is required to effectively manage a transit construction project. The course covers the basics of project management and encourages discussion of real world transit construction problems. In addition, we review fundamental elements that are present in all FTA-funded capital construction projects, including the Project Management Plan (PMP) which must be approved by the FTA. 

Topics include the following:

•Purpose of PMPs

•Organization

•Project control

•Procurement

•Public involvement

•Managing risk

•Managing design

•Managing construction

•Quality assurance and quality control

•Managing testing and start-up

•System operations and construction safety

Course 2 | Risk Assessment for Transit Capital Projects 

For more than seven years, our transit and passenger rail expert has taught this course focusing on the risk review process as described by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Oversight Procedure (OP) documents, particularly OP-40.

Participants learn the purpose of a risk review, methods to prepare for a risk assessment, principles of the methods used for risk assessment, and ways these assessments are applied to the project management process.

Topics covered in the course include the following:

•FTA’s risk review requirements

•Stages of project development when a risk assessment should be performed

•Types of expertise necessary to conduct a risk assessment

•Evaluating a project’s status

•Identifying risks and mapping them to project components

•Factoring risks

•Risk assessment process, including Beta range factor concepts

•Risk response

•Risk protection, contingency analysis, and primary and secondary risk mitigation

•Implementing and monitoring a Risk Management Plan

Course 3 | Quality Assurance and Quality Control in Transit 

For nearly ten years, Urban’s expert has educated participants on the essential components of quality assurance and quality control for small and large transit agencies. This course also reviews and expands upon the FTA’s Quality Management System Guidelines and addresses the various perspectives for quality relative to capital development, transit operations, maintenance, and vehicle acquisition.

Topics include the following:

•An overview and definition of quality assurance and quality control

•The benefits of implementing a quality management system

•The components that comprise a quality management system

•Strategies to implement quality processes in capital development, operations, management, and vehicle acquisition

Real People – Real Results

Urban tailors these course to address the issues our attendees face. Unique to our courses is that we share our knowledge about small and large transit agencies and the best ways to communicate with each type.

Highlights

• Over 20 years of experience, including authoring the original coursework
• Real life expertise incorporated for a logical perspective
• National exposure to agencies seeking training