UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

This paper reports the results of a year-long study of practices associated with employee absence in the transit industry. The research focused on three areas: extraboard scheduling, workers' compensation, and occupational stress. An extensive review of prior research was conducted, and new data about both organizational policies and employee attitudes within California transit agencies were collected by mail surveys and analyzed statistically. Twenty-one organizations and 1039 operating employees from within California responded to the surveys. The research found that most organizations use judgmental methods for determining the size of the extraboard and that these methods are likely to result in extraboards that are either too large or too small. Strong relationships were identified between workers' compensation experience and equipment design and maintenance practices. Occupational stressors were strongly correlated with self-reported health outcomes and job attitudes. Suggestions are offered for managerial actions that would mitigate some of the problems identified by the research.