How APTA’s 2025 Mobility Conference Spotlights Training, Tech, and Talent

00:00 Stop Requested.

00:01 Levi McCollum: Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit.

00:05 Levi McCollum: I’m your co host, Levi McCollum, director of operations at ETA Transit.

00:10 Christian Londono: And I’m your co host, Christian Londono, Senior Customer Success Manager at ETA Transit.

00:20 Levi McCollum: Hey Christian, how’s it going?

00:23 Christian Londono: Hey Levi, how’s it going?

00:25 Levi McCollum: It’s going pretty well. I’m really interested to hear how APTA Mobility was.

00:30 Levi McCollum: So I thought we could give our listener some insights there from your trip to Austin earlier this month.

00:36 Levi McCollum: What do you think?

00:37 Christian Londono: Sounds good. It was a great conference.

00:40 Christian Londono: Indeed. I look forward to talk about it.

00:43 Levi McCollum: Excellent. Well, you know, just to make this very direct, I want to ask you your three takeaways from the

00:52 Levi McCollum: conference. What did you learn? What did you bring home? What could be of value to our listeners and they

00:58 Levi McCollum: could apply at their agency? Perhaps.

01:01 Levi McCollum: So let’s start with just number one.

01:04 Levi McCollum: What was the thing that stood out to you the most?

01:08 Christian Londono: Well, Levi, this conference, APTA Mobility, it’s not my first time attending.

01:15 Christian Londono: I’ve attended before these conferences in.

01:19 Christian Londono: I see a lot of transit planners, folks from that side of the transit agencies, and folks that work on

01:27 Christian Londono: micro transit. But this time was very well attended.

01:32 Christian Londono: And I think one of the reasons it was was because, you know, at the same time APTO was holding

01:39 Christian Londono: an international bus rodeo. And I think that my number one takeaway is going to have to do with training

01:48 Christian Londono: technologies available in the transit industry.

01:53 Christian Londono: And I’m going to tell you why, you know, just, just in a second.

01:58 Christian Londono: And, and that’s because, you know, speaking with some of these drivers, I got to talk to drivers from, you

02:05 Christian Londono: know, different places around the country.

02:07 Christian Londono: They were competing, you know, at the rodeo.

02:11 Christian Londono: And a lot of the technicians, particularly the technicians, you know, there were a lot of them that were attending

02:19 Christian Londono: and participating for the first time.

02:23 Christian Londono: And I’m going to tell you, Levi, they had 52 maintenance teams.

02:28 Christian Londono: So those are 52 different agencies that are participating.

02:32 Christian Londono: It’s a lot. And then of course, a lot of the participants are big name agencies and then there’s some

02:40 Christian Londono: kind of like smaller agencies also that are trying to get into the game and be able to participate and

02:46 Christian Londono: bring their best. Because this is about taking pride and bringing your best and brightest and you know, showing their

02:54 Christian Londono: skills. But, but you know, back to one takeaway is technologies for training.

03:00 Christian Londono: For me, it’s because that was one of the things that this technicians were bringing up after participating in the

03:09 Christian Londono: conference is that a lot of the, you know, a technology that were put in front of or you know,

03:17 Christian Londono: when, when they were actually competing.

03:18 Christian Londono: They use all these different kind of like training modules.

03:23 Christian Londono: You know, some agencies, they have all the systems that are in a bus, they have them all mounted in

03:27 Christian Londono: a wall and then they can actually see the systems and how they work together and they, they can actually

03:33 Christian Londono: use that to train troubleshooting in doing diagnostics.

03:39 Christian Londono: Right. So, you know, some of the agencies that didn’t have these tools, the participants, they brought it up how,

03:47 Christian Londono: you know, for them, they were in front of these things for the first time and it just took them

03:51 Christian Londono: a little bit more time to figure things out.

03:53 Christian Londono: And then they learned from some of the other competitors that they actually had similar modules back at home and

04:00 Christian Londono: they trained on them. So they kind of had the leg up, you know, by having this technology.

04:06 Christian Londono: So, so all that, you know, number one takeaway is let’s take a look at the technology that we have

04:11 Christian Londono: available for training. Just not only our technicians, but also our bus operators and just make sure that we’re working

04:20 Christian Londono: with those technology providers to look at what’s available in the market and how we can better help train that

04:26 Christian Londono: workforce.

04:28 Levi McCollum: Yeah, I like that a lot.

04:29 Levi McCollum: And I could see where you’d be at a natural disadvantage if you don’t have that at your own headquarters.

04:35 Levi McCollum: Right. Those agencies, probably the larger ones, have more money to spend on training.

04:40 Levi McCollum: They have more robust systems. They probably have, you know, a dedicated staff of people that are responsible for training

04:46 Levi McCollum: rather than just one person perhaps.

04:49 Levi McCollum: So those smaller agencies can be at that disadvantage and then they get there to the rodeo and it’s, it

04:57 Levi McCollum: probably would take you some time to be able to feel comfortable with the equipment that you’re going to use

05:03 Levi McCollum: there. But it, I think to your point, it’s more than just the getting to the international rodeo or just

05:11 Levi McCollum: a regional rodeo. It’s about how you perform day to day.

05:15 Levi McCollum: Right. It’s how you operate and carry out your service, you know, Monday through Friday, Saturday through Saturday and Sunday

05:24 Levi McCollum: as well. So that makes a big difference in how well you execute out in the field.

05:30 Levi McCollum: When it’s live, you know, you’re, you’re really picking up passengers and doing the day to day work.

05:37 Christian Londono: Yeah. And you know, training is particularly critical for performance and how you do things.

05:45 Christian Londono: Right. Like better trained individuals, they’re gonna perform well or better than those that have less training.

05:52 Christian Londono: And a lot of the times, Levi, these type of technologies are seen as luxury.

05:57 Christian Londono: Right. Like, you know, some agencies, when they purchase technology, they choose to buy a bus in a box.

06:06 Christian Londono: Right. Like you have all that onboard technology and what the driver is going to be interacting with in pretty

06:11 Christian Londono: much a briefcase that you can open and show a bus driver and have them testing and touching and pressing

06:18 Christian Londono: and trying things out. Because, you know, if you don’t know technology and some folks, when you’re just showing them

06:24 Christian Londono: a system, let’s think about a bus operator, you know, like, and you’re actually driving out there in the streets

06:29 Christian Londono: that you’re going to try to stay within what you learn and then not miss anything out because you’re by

06:35 Christian Londono: yourself out there in the streets.

06:36 Christian Londono: So they’re very reluctant to maybe, you know, do things that they’re not confident with.

06:41 Christian Londono: But when you have these training modules, they’re made for you to touch and play with and you know, you

06:47 Christian Londono: think about bus simulators, bus simulators, you can run so many different simulations of things that could be dangerous and

06:54 Christian Londono: actually result in an accident, but you’re doing it on a computer where you can crash and you can see

07:00 Christian Londono: what will go wrong under those conditions, making certain decisions.

07:05 Christian Londono: So it’s excellent for training, but a lot of times it’s seen as luxury.

07:09 Christian Londono: It’s like, no, we really need to buy the equipment for the vehicles that will be in revenue service and

07:15 Christian Londono: like all these other technology or equipment for training and whatnot, it’s like, ah, now maybe we’ll think about that

07:23 Christian Londono: later. And it’s kind of like put on the back burner.

07:26 Christian Londono: And only some of those agencies also that have the funding that are doing like maybe a robust project or

07:32 Christian Londono: maybe because of the nature of their operations, they identify the needs to, you know, better train their workforce.

07:41 Christian Londono: But definitely a highlight.

07:43 Levi McCollum: That’s an excellent point. So it needs to be higher on the priority list for agencies, make sure that you

07:49 Levi McCollum: have the adequate equipment and access to said equipment for training purposes to improve your services.

07:57 Levi McCollum: What’s next? What was the number two takeaway, would you say?

08:01 Christian Londono: Oh, well, one more thing, Levi, just from the rodeo that I wanted to mention what I’ve heard and you

08:10 Christian Londono: know, our listeners will hopefully correct me if this is not right, but what I’ve heard is that this, this

08:18 Christian Londono: was the first rodeo with 100% battery electric buses.

08:24 Christian Londono: So all the buses the drivers were driving, as I understand where, you know, Cap Metro’s electric buses.

08:33 Christian Londono: And if you recall, Levi, you know, we had a, you know, pretty, you know, a excellent guest in our

08:41 Christian Londono: show a few weeks back and you know who I’m talking about.

08:46 Levi McCollum: Yeah, yeah, David Carr. That episode is going to be coming out pretty soon.

08:50 Levi McCollum: I’m really looking forward to getting that into the ears of our listeners.

08:55 Christian Londono: So, as you know, David handles the electrification at Cap Metro and of course he was part of working on

09:05 Christian Londono: this rodeo. So, you know, kudos to him and all the team up Cap Metro because the conference was just

09:13 Christian Londono: excellent. Everything was top notch. You know, everybody had a great time.

09:19 Christian Londono: And you know, I didn’t get to go to some of these tours, but I heard great things about the

09:23 Christian Londono: tours. And you know, Levi, you’ve been in Austin, you know, when you see as a transit planner all the

09:31 Christian Londono: different best practices in transit planning in place, I mean, what they’re doing is just incredible.

09:37 Christian Londono: They pretty much, they have all the modes, very multimodal, very connected, and they live and breathe public transit.

09:44 Christian Londono: So it’s just the perfect environment for the conference.

09:47 Christian Londono: But yeah, that was another highlight for, for the rodeo.

09:50 Christian Londono: It’s just first rodeo, 100 zero emissions.

09:54 Levi McCollum: Yeah. Which also touches on the training component too.

09:58 Levi McCollum: Right. Because you’re going to need to train for electrification and that’s an ongoing transition that a lot of transit

10:04 Levi McCollum: agencies are making. So it just further reinforces the point for training.

10:10 Christian Londono: Yeah.

10:11 Levi McCollum: All right.

10:11 Christian Londono: And you know, that’s one thing that I, I’m not sure if when they did the rodeo they did separate

10:16 Christian Londono: or not, but it’s any maintenance a challenges that, that if they did something separate for electric vehicles versus diesel

10:25 Christian Londono: engines. But I didn’t hear anything about it, but I’m imagining that some electrification is getting injected into that.

10:34 Levi McCollum: What do you got for number two, Christian?

10:37 Christian Londono: So this conference focus a lot in the value of, you know, artificial intelligence.

10:48 Christian Londono: We’ve talked about that a few episodes back here and stop requested of how artificial intelligence is impacting all industries,

10:56 Christian Londono: but particularly the public transit industry.

11:01 Christian Londono: So this conference highlighted a lot overall technology.

11:05 Christian Londono: There was a lot of conversation about autonomous vehicles in automation, but you know, again that continuing that conversation and

11:15 Christian Londono: momentum around artificial intelligence and how is powering a lot of innovative solutions in the transit industry.

11:24 Christian Londono: So there were different presentations where projects around the country are being highlighted.

11:32 Christian Londono: You know, on Tuesday’s general session, there were several breakthroughs presented, particularly in automation.

11:40 Christian Londono: One of the ones that, you know, I’m very excited about is the one from jta Jacksonville Transportation Authority here

11:50 Christian Londono: in Florida, which is the ultimate urban circulator or U2C project where they’re pretty much putting out their, you know,

12:01 Christian Londono: autonomous vehicles throughout their downtown area.

12:04 Christian Londono: And something that I think it’s too admired of an agency that, that is kind of like charting the way

12:10 Christian Londono: or you know, they’re the, the first ones that are actually dipping Their, their feet in the water with a

12:18 Christian Londono: lot of the technologies. Right. Like other agencies pretty much just follow suit best practices, but there’s agency to set

12:25 Christian Londono: the way. And JTA is just very impressive what they’ve been doing in terms of autonomous vehicles.

12:32 Christian Londono: And again that’s part of AI.

12:34 Christian Londono: All that is AI powered and you know, how it can actually help the vehicle make decisions, you know, using

12:42 Christian Londono: the lighter and zoner technology. So they’re just growing.

12:46 Christian Londono: In April 17, they opened the Autonomous Innovation Center.

12:52 Christian Londono: So again they just continue expanding this project of, you know, autonomous vehicles.

12:58 Christian Londono: And it’s one of those different projects that were highlighted at the conference.

13:03 Christian Londono: And again back to AI and that conversation that we had about how is power in different solutions and then

13:10 Christian Londono: how we have to see AI as a way of automating tasks that is going to free up time for

13:16 Christian Londono: us and allow us to work on other things so gain efficiencies.

13:21 Christian Londono: And you know, the keynote for, I believe the Monday session, you know, gave out an example how she was

13:31 Christian Londono: getting ready to put together a birthday party for her son.

13:35 Christian Londono: And instead of spending all the time online doing the research, finding the supplies and ordering things and setting up

13:43 Christian Londono: invitations, she just pretty much put all the input into AI and ask AI to identify all the supplies for

13:50 Christian Londono: like a dinosaur theme party and then give the inputs and then the AI pretty much resolve all her birthday

13:56 Christian Londono: party, created invitations, you know, bought all the supplies for the party and then she could spend the day with

14:04 Christian Londono: her son. And you know, how we have to see AI as such, I.e.

14:08 Christian Londono: automated tasks and is allowing us to gain more time to be able to focus on other things.

14:14 Christian Londono: And that is not necessarily work.

14:16 Christian Londono: It could be, you know, enjoying life.

14:19 Christian Londono: So it’s again, another highlight is how we’re looking at technology and what it’s doing to the transit industry and

14:25 Christian Londono: particularly, you know, with AI, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of solutions that are.

14:31 Christian Londono: Be empowered that potentially is going to help us save time within transit agencies in certain rudimentary tasks and be

14:39 Christian Londono: able to use that time to focus on other things like actually growing the service and that customer experience.

14:47 Levi McCollum: Yeah, that’s a really good takeaway.

14:50 Levi McCollum: And we’ve had a whole episode on AI and automation in public transportation that was back in early March for

14:57 Levi McCollum: our listeners, if you wanted to go back in time and check that one out from the archive.

15:02 Levi McCollum: But the area that I think needs the most improvement and probably where AI could help agencies the most would

15:11 Levi McCollum: be with automating, the handoff between different departments.

15:16 Levi McCollum: As you know, CHRISTIAN I think our listeners know there’s a lot of internal communication that needs to happen for

15:22 Levi McCollum: a service change. For example, there’s kind of a handoff period while it goes from planning to marketing, right? When

15:30 Levi McCollum: you need to be able to advertise for new services or a change in routing or a change in times,

15:38 Levi McCollum: then it needs to go to operations.

15:40 Levi McCollum: I think using AI as not a replacement, but an aid to be able to facilitate that transfer between those

15:49 Levi McCollum: different departments. There could be something there.

15:54 Levi McCollum: I think we’re still a little ways away from having this widespread autonomous vehicle program.

16:02 Levi McCollum: You know, outside of JTA, of course, they’re, they’re kind of ahead of the curve, like you mentioned, under Nat

16:07 Levi McCollum: Ford’s leadership. But for, you know, your agencies that are just kind of in that mid range, maybe checking out

16:15 Levi McCollum: what JTA and some of the other innovators are doing, you know, start small, start with automating some of the

16:23 Levi McCollum: steps in between your departments or where you might have a handoff and some things could get dropped if, if

16:30 Levi McCollum: that handoff is not done correctly.

16:32 Levi McCollum: Would you agree with that? Christian?

16:34 Christian Londono: Yes, I think that that’s definitely going to help, you know, reduce the friction and make sure that we’re winning

16:41 Christian Londono: time to, you know, focus on other things.

16:44 Christian Londono: And all together this is helping us to, you know, automate, you know, a lot of the data mining, a

16:50 Christian Londono: lot of the spending time, you know, just pulling a, you know, the information or just doing the effort so

16:57 Christian Londono: you can get the result. It’s just spitting up the time that you get to the outcome.

17:02 Christian Londono: So 100% just have to take a look at the different solutions that are out there and how they’re helping

17:09 Christian Londono: our agencies. You know, Levi, the third top takeaway for me from this conference is, is definitely the sessions and

17:20 Christian Londono: the value of listening to the best practices of, you know, some of the best agencies around the country.

17:27 Christian Londono: And then, you know, they, they do cater this conference to all agency sizes.

17:34 Christian Londono: You know, in some of the panels you can actually see it where some of the participants are participants in

17:40 Christian Londono: the same topic from a, you know, small agency.

17:44 Christian Londono: Some are from a midsize and some are from, you know, the largest agencies in the US and yes, the

17:50 Christian Londono: way that they carry out projects is different, you know, for each one of those agency sizes.

17:57 Christian Londono: But they all make efforts, they all innovate, and they all provide, during the sessions, value that you can take

18:05 Christian Londono: with you back to your agency to start, you know, a performance improvement projects.

18:13 Christian Londono: So that, that’s the most exciting one.

18:15 Christian Londono: And if I was to give you one session that I really enjoyed was the one that was called Recurring

18:23 Christian Londono: Industry Talent, Unexpected Partners, Strategies and Programs.

18:28 Christian Londono: That was just a terrific session.

18:32 Levi McCollum: What makes that one so good?

18:34 Christian Londono: Well, you know, different things. Particularly, one of the things for me as ETA Transit, you know, head of Customer

18:43 Christian Londono: Success, is seeing our customers presenting and participating at these conferences and highlighting their best practices.

18:53 Christian Londono: And, you know, during this session that I just mentioned about, you know, workforce development and talent acquisition and retention,

19:03 Christian Londono: we had, you know, a panelist from High Valley Transit, which is one of our customers, Allie Shorkey, she’s the

19:11 Christian Londono: HR director. And then we had two panelists from TARTA from the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority.

19:20 Christian Londono: We had Lee Gibson, he’s a talent acquisition manager at Toledo.

19:25 Christian Londono: And we also had Ursula Barrera, she’s the chief HR officer at Toledo.

19:32 Christian Londono: And, you know, all of them, again, presenting and sharing best practices.

19:37 Christian Londono: But, you know, I particularly want to highlight some of the programs that tarta’s been working on.

19:46 Christian Londono: And, you know, it’s been paying off well in terms of being able to recruit and maintain the employees.

19:52 Christian Londono: And it’s making efforts to, you know, convey the value of working for a public transit agency, but also letting

20:01 Christian Londono: the community know what it is to work for a transit agency.

20:09 Christian Londono: I think they came up with a program and they have all these A Day in the Life of.

20:18 Christian Londono: And they created campaign videos and they’re working on actually communicating what it will be, you know, living in the.

20:26 Christian Londono: In the shoes of a bus operator.

20:28 Christian Londono: And what it will be is, is that a career for you, right? And maybe, you know, for you would

20:33 Christian Londono: not be a career or for somebody else, but there’s people that like driving and then they like, maybe I

20:39 Christian Londono: would like to drive for a transit agency, right? Like, but would I enjoy it or not? And just being

20:44 Christian Londono: able to communicate what it will be and what you would expect with campaign like that, it just, it helps

20:51 Christian Londono: to recruit the right talent, have the right expectations.

20:54 Christian Londono: So, you know, definitely enjoy their session.

20:56 Christian Londono: And, you know, again, the overall highlight, this third highlight for this conference is the sessions.

21:04 Christian Londono: Very valuable sessions. And people were taking away a lot back to their home agencies.

21:11 Levi McCollum: Yeah, our listeners are interested in checking out some of those videos A Day in the Life of Team Tarta

21:18 Levi McCollum: just to get some inspiration. Perhaps you’re doing something similar already, but if you’re not and you want to check

21:23 Levi McCollum: it out, go to. You go to your favorite search and TARTA Careers page has at least three of those

21:31 Levi McCollum: videos that you can see so you get a glimpse of what Christian is talking about here.

21:38 Levi McCollum: So Those are three excellent takeaways from the APTA Mobility Conference that was held in Austin earlier this month in April.

21:48 Levi McCollum: Christian, as always, thanks for chatting with me about public transportation.

21:53 Levi McCollum: This is always a lot of fun.

21:55 Levi McCollum: And I’m, I’m glad that you get to go to this one, since I didn’t get to go.

22:00 Levi McCollum: At least one of us got to and, you know, sharing, sharing these takeaways.

22:05 Levi McCollum: So really appreciate your time. Thank you to our listeners and we will catch you next week.

22:11 Levi McCollum: Just stay tuned for the the upcoming episodes.

22:14 Levi McCollum: We have several new interviews that are about to come out and we’re really looking forward to those.

22:20 Christian Londono: Thank you for listening.