BLOG: Advancing Transportation Safety with eLearning

Charmaine Freake

June 19, 2024

Advancing Transportation Safety with eLearning

In an era where digital transformation permeates nearly every industry, the transportation sector is no exception. As new requirements, regulations, and ever-present technological changes continue to push the sector forward, driver and road safety remain paramount concerns.

Consequently, industry regulators and oversight groups continually seek modern and efficient methods to deliver training content to employers and drivers quickly and effectively, benefiting all industry stakeholders.

We recently attended the CCMTA’s 2024 Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Edmonton, where we connected with industry leaders and those involved in overseeing and executing transportation safety training. Unsurprisingly, improving training efficiency and outcomes is a top priority, especially as regulations and technologies continue to evolve. This is why we’ve spent considerable time working with the industry to understand how eLearning and industry-wide delivery tools can support these efforts.

eLearning: Enhancing Training Efficiency and Effectiveness

The integration of eLearning presents a powerful opportunity to enhance safety protocols and training methods. By leveraging digital tools and platforms, transportation oversight groups can create a more robust, efficient, and effective training ecosystem that significantly improves safety outcomes. This can be achieved on an industry-wide level, benefiting all stakeholders simultaneously.

eLearning has the potential to facilitate the learning of five times more material without increasing the time spent on training.

Our team here at Bluedrop has been engaged in the transportation sector for many years, executing training advancement initiatives in collaboration with provincial governments, industry associations, sector councils, and other key stakeholders. Since our first engagement almost a decade ago, we’ve seen growing interest in training solutions that simplify processes for employers, offer increased access, ensure consistency in delivery, and ultimately, ease certification renewal and support for drivers and new industry entrants.

The Importance of Safety in Transportation

Why transportation? Well, our passion is on advancing training delivery and helping heavily regulated industries transform outdated and inefficient training processes for the benefit of all. The transportation sector checks all these boxes. Transportation safety is critical not only for the organizations and employees directly involved in the transport business but also for the public and the environment.

Accidents in transportation lead to significant human, economic, and environmental costs. Therefore, rigorous training and continuous education are essential to uphold and improve safety standards. Adding to this challenge is the fact that training is becoming increasingly complex, requiring industry or regional customization to meet market nuances.

Finding relevant transportation training is as challenging as executing it.

Traditional training methods, often characterized by in-person sessions and paper-based materials, have limitations, particularly in an era of rapid change. They are time-consuming, inflexible, and sometimes ineffective in keeping up with the rapidly changing landscape of transportation safety regulations and best practices. This is where eLearning has proven to be a real game-changer at both organizational and industry-wide levels.

Advantages of eLearning in Transportation Safety

Accessibility and Flexibility: eLearning platforms provide unparalleled accessibility. Employees can access training materials anytime and anywhere, allowing for flexible learning schedules. This is particularly beneficial for transportation professionals who often have irregular hours and are constantly on the move. By accommodating their schedules, eLearning ensures safety training is not sidelined due to logistical challenges.

We’ve seen this with our MELT online training in collaboration with SGI in Saskatchewan and the Online Air Brakes refresher course in Ontario—both of which allow busy truckers and job seekers to complete training on their own time, from anywhere, on any device.

Interactive and Engaging Content: Digital learning platforms can incorporate various multimedia elements such as videos, simulations, and interactive modules. These elements make learning more engaging and effective. For instance, interactive animations and virtual reality (VR) simulations can recreate hazardous situations in a safe environment, allowing trainees to practice and hone their skills without real-world risks. Such immersive experiences can significantly enhance comprehension and retention of safety protocols.

Consistency and Standardization: eLearning ensures that all employees receive the same quality and content of training. This has been a cornerstone of our value in developing custom eLearning solutions for clients for decades. This standardization is crucial in maintaining uniform safety standards across an organization, particularly in large transportation companies with a dispersed workforce. Online modules can (and should) be regularly updated to reflect the latest safety regulations and best practices, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. This updating capability is a value proposition industry groups and organizations should be looking for from their eLearning content developers, whether Bluedrop ISM or otherwise.

Data-Driven Insights: eLearning platforms (such as our SkillsPass platform) often have built-in analytics tools that track progress and performance. These insights can help organizations identify knowledge gaps and areas where additional training is needed. By analyzing data, industry oversight bodies and downstream company users can tailor their training programs to address specific needs, thereby enhancing overall safety outcomes. This is a critical component of the complete online training solution—custom/relevant training + an accessible and robust training platform = results and long-term industry value.

Cost-Effectiveness: While there is an initial investment in developing eLearning platforms, the long-term savings are substantial. Reduced travel costs, lower accommodation expenses for trainers, and minimized downtime for employees translate to significant cost savings. Additionally, the scalability of eLearning means that once the content is developed, it can be used repeatedly without additional costs.

Practical Implementation of eLearning for Transportation Safety

Advancing industry-wide training goes beyond the application of eLearning and technology and involves a fairly simple but important five-step process applicable regardless of the industry.

Assessing Training Needs: Regulators and industry oversight groups need to collaborate with experts and relevant stakeholders to conduct a thorough assessment to understand the specific safety training needs of the workforce. This includes identifying new requirements, areas where training can and should be expedited, high-risk areas requiring better training, and common safety violations.

Sourcing Customized Content: Based on the assessment, the critical next step is sourcing relevant content to meet the required training needs. As requirements and technologies continue to advance at a rapid pace, finding relevant off-the-shelf content is becoming increasingly difficult. This is where customized eLearning solutions come to the forefront, enabling true tailoring of training to industry and regional requirements. The key is to ensure that the training requirements are well-defined and that your eLearning vendor has experience developing and delivering solutions that achieve the desired outcomes.

Utilize Technology: Utilizing training platforms capable of working across entire industries/regions (as opposed to siloed within individual organizations) where training from multiple providers can be centrally managed and accessed by users is key. The application of eLearning solutions is directly linked here given the obvious efficiencies (whether stand-alone eLearning courses or hybrid in conjunction with in-class or in-cab components in the case of transportation training). These solutions offer engaging and interactive delivery while still enabling a practical, hands-on experience crucial for safety training in any industry. Incorporate a mix of multimedia elements to keep the content engaging, using modern eLearning technologies such as VR, augmented reality (AR), and interactive simulations.

Engage and Motivate Learners: eLearning solutions can be further advanced with group training scenarios and active participation to create an engaging learning environment. Recent trends include using gamification techniques, such as quizzes and rewards, to motivate learners, increase satisfaction, and most importantly, drive knowledge retention.

Monitor and Improve: Activating an industry-wide training program is just the start. Continuously monitoring the effectiveness and outcomes of the training and making adjustments to the approach and content as the industry evolves is key. Most industries (and individual organizations) fall short at this stage, as training becomes stale or outdated, and the time and cost to update become unmanageable. Leveraging a purpose-built training platform and relevant eLearning solutions makes this process much simpler and more cost-effective. One of the many values of eLearning is the ability to adjust on the fly, ensuring optimal value based on industry changes, analytics, and user feedback. This data can be used to make necessary adjustments and improvements to the program, ensuring long-term relevance and value for the initial investment.

Parting Thoughts

eLearning is transforming the way regulators and industry oversight groups approach critical safety training, and the reason is simple. The use of customized online solutions supports advanced training delivery, regardless of the industry, training requirements, or the number of organizations or end-user trainees involved. The consistency in content, delivery, and the ability to better track completions, results, and credentials offer a significant benefit that far outweighs the in-person alternative.

Ninety percent of companies offer some type of eLearning to their employees. What’s more, the actual utilization of eLearning is expected to grow by another 250% by 2026.

Furthermore, by providing flexible, engaging, and standardized training solutions, eLearning allows for more continuous training opportunities and enhances the overall safety culture within an industry and its participating organizations. As training solutions innovators, we see how training technology continues to evolve. As it does, the potential for even more innovative (e.g., VR) and effective eLearning solutions in transportation safety is immense.

Organizations are embracing eLearning, and industry oversight groups need to do likewise. Embracing these digital tools now and supporting their alignment with the industry is not just a smart business move; it’s a critical step toward ensuring the safety and well-being of everyone involved in the transportation sector into the future.

Visit Bluedrop ISM for more information on our custom eLearning solutions for transportation and other industries and our SkillsPass training delivery platform. You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date on all things Bluedrop!

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