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Transportation Research Board TCRP A-37 Project
Paratransit Emergency Preparedness and Operations Handbook

The research team for Boyd, Caton & Grant and Nusura, Inc. are pleased to announce a pair of free workshops - one in Los Angeles in January and another in Fargo in February - to help us validate the planning guidance we are developing and to help you address local emergency planning concerns. Scroll down for additional details.

Register Now!

Los Angeles - http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=6yof7yiab&oeidk=a07e5fsko3qb5fb3313

Fargo - http://webdev.surtc.org/training/planningRegistration.php

Instructors

What

Validation Workshop and Tabletop Exercise
This interactive workshop and tabletop exercise will explore industry-leading practices in emergency planning for people with disabilities and access and functional needs, with particular focus on the role of paratransit agencies in emergency response and recovery. Your participation and feedback will help shape the final form and content of the Paratransit Emergency Preparedness and Operations Handbook.

When

January 11-12, Los Angeles

February 14-15, Fargo

Where

Los Angeles
One Gateway Plaza, 3rd Floor
Union Station Conference Room

Fargo, North Dakota
Holiday Inn
3803 13th Ave S

Getting There

One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles
The exercise facility is accessible from the Metro Gold Line and Red Line, Amtrak, Metrolink, and numerous bus routes operated by Metro and other area transportation providers. Parking is available at the Metro facility for $6.00/day.

Holiday Inn, Fargo
Stay tuned for additional details about how to get to there using transit.

Who Should Attend

• Transit managers
• Paratransit managers
• Transportation officials
• Emergency managers
• Emergency planners
• Law enforcement
• Fire protection
• Emergency medical services
• Care facilities
• Agencies serving people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs

Agenda

Day 1 - Industry-leading practices

• 8:30 a.m. Check in and networking
• 9:00 a.m. Introductions
• 9:30 a.m. Preparedness – What's In Your Plan?
• 10:45 a.m. Break
• 11:00 a.m. Prevention – Strategies for Risk Reduction
• 12:00 p.m. Lunch
• 1:00 p.m. Response – Strategies to Manage Emergencies & Disasters
• 2:30 p.m. Break
• 2:45 p.m. Recovery – Reconstituting Service After the Crisis
• 3:30 p.m. Final Discussion and Preparation for Tabletop Exercise
• 4:00 p.m. Adjourn

Day 2 - Tabletop Exercise

• 8:30 a.m. Check in and networking
• 9:00 a.m. StartEx for Tabletop Exercise
• 1:00 p.m. EndEx and Box Lunch
• 1:30 p.m. Tabletop Hotwash
• 2:00 p.m. Debrief on Validation Workshop
• 2:30 p.m. Adjourn

Background

Effectively planning for the role of transportation in emergency situations is critical. This is particularly true when it comes to transit-dependent populations including people with disabilities, people with limited financial resources, and others with access and functional needs. In recognition of these planning challenges, the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board Transit Cooperative Research Program is developing planning guidance to help paratransit managers to better understand their emergency roles and responsibilities.

The project research team of Nusura, Inc. and Boyd, Caton and Grant (BCG) conducted a focused literature review, interviewed experts across the country, and developed a synthesis of industry-leading practices. These materials have been summarized in an Interim Report, and distilled into a Paratransit Emergency Preparedness & Operations Handbook.

Contents of this handbook will be presented and evaluated through workshops and tabletop exercises in Los Angeles and Fargo. A final copy of this handbook that incorporates findings from these validation workshops will be shared with stakeholders for final validation prior to final publication, anticipated in the late spring of 2012.

Additional information about the TRB project is available here: http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=2892

Instructors

Gary Gleason

Gary Gleason is a vice president with Nusura and directs the transportation division. Gary also serves as strategist, lead trainer and subject matter expert for many Nusura projects. For nearly two decades Gleason has worked in public transportation, and for more than a decade he has worked on transportation emergency management issues at the local, state and federal level. Areas of particular expertise include vulnerability assessments, evacuation planning, issues involving people with access and functional needs, risk communication, and interagency communication and coordination.

Gleason worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency on more than 20 national disasters including working with FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces at Ground Zero and crisis communications planning for the 2002 Olympic Games. In 2008 the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars awarded Gary a Fulbright scholarship, during which he studied emergency management systems and lessons learned from past disasters in Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Spain. He has provided training and/or technical assistance in Canada, Germany, Portugal and throughout the United States.

Adrian Moy

Adrian Moy is nationally recognized as a training consultant, instructor, and author of training programs, policies, procedures, and job aids in transit safety, security, violence prevention, and emergency management. His transit career began in 1977 as an operator with the San Francisco MUNI. Over the course of his career he has also served as a dispatcher, trainer and training supervisor including work at TriMet in Portland, Oregon, the San Francisco MTA, and the National Transit Institute (NTI) at Rutgers University. A Nusura associate since 2009, Moy has been one of the lead researchers on the TCRP A-37 Project, and has helped to develop emergency plans and train frontline staff for a variety of Nusura transportation clients. He has provided training and technical assistance in 48 of the 50 United States.

Ream Lazaro

Ream Lazaro specializes in urban, small urban, rural, and community transportation. With three and a half decades of transit experience, he brings an invaluable level of industry expertise to the BCG team. He was a Sergeant in the U.S. Army and went to college on the GI bill in Colorado, matriculating in both BA and MA programs. Before landing at BCG in 2006, Ream managed human resource development for three major urban transit systems for nearly fifteen years. After that, as an independent transit consultant he worked for the National Rural Transit Assistance Program (NRTAP), the National Transit Institute (NTI), and was a partner in the firm of Lazaro & Noel. For approximately 20 years, Ream has supported the Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA) as a transit operations, safety, and security trainer and received that organization's 2007 Founder's Award for his lifetime of work in community transportation. At BCG, ream serves as an industry specialist and technical lead for the FTA Transit Bus Safety and Security Program, one of BCG's flagship projects, and assists with other BCG initiatives.

June Kailes

June Isaacson Kailes is a consultant and a disability rights advocate. Respected and recognized nationally and internationally, she is one of the original national leaders in the Independent Living Movement. June is an Adjunct Associate Professor and the Associate Director of the Center for Disability and Health Policy at Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California.

June has operated a consulting practice since 1978. She works locally, nationally and internationally as a consultant, writer and trainer. She consults for and trains businesses, universities, state associations, government entities, centers for independent living and other not-for-profit organizations. She has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses, workshops and seminars. June writes, speaks and educates from practical "hands-on" experience and over three decades of extensive research and training.

Jim Gordon

Jim Gordon is a highly decorated 27-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department with extensive experience in interagency planning, training and exercises. He has served as a curriculum developer and trainer on a variety of local, state and federal emergency management programs and is certified in emergency management, continuity of operations, critical infrastructure protection, and the Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program (HSEEP) doctrine. A passionate trainer and facilitator, Jim has provided training and technical assistance in 47 of the 50 United States and numerous countries abroad.