Office of Operations
photos of traffic merging onto congested highway, congestion in snowstorm, variable message sign, cargo, variable speed limit sign in a work zone, and a freeway at night
21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies

Training & Exercises

  • AASHTO Assessment of State DOT Homeland Security Training Needs (PDF 53KB) - Immediately after the 9/11/2001 attacks, AASHTO prepared this assessment of core training needs of State DOT employees.
  • AASHTO Exercise Guide (Winter 2005) - Through the NCHRP program, AASHTO is developing guidance to assist transportation agencies in planning for and conducting security exercises.
  • DHS Training Compendium - DHS has prepared this compendium of security related training for state and local agencies.
  • FHWA Security Training Strategic Plan (Fall 2005) - FHWA is preparing a strategy for developing and delivering appropriate security training to its employees and their counterparts at State DOTs.
  • FHWA-Sponsored Response/Recovery Workshops (HTML, DOC 3.1MB) - From 2002-2004, FHWA sponsored regional multimodal workshop/exercises to bring transportation agencies together with other responders to work through realistic scenarios involving attacks on the transportation infrastructure using weapons of mass destruction. This page provides a presentation on the workshop program as well as materials to assist agencies who would like to conduct their own workshops.
  • Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program - The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness provides these excellent materials on organizing and conducting security-related exercises.
  • Models, Simulations, and Games (MS&G) - One-hundred Models, Simulations, & Games (MS&G) were reviewed for their ability to support domestic preparedness training and exercising (T&E). For each product, the review considered the product's functionality from a T&E perspective, its hardware and software requirements, and cost. Product functionality was compared to key T&E attributes that were summarized from over 1100 T&E requirements.
  • TOPOFF 2 National Preparedness Exercise - DHS published this report on findings from the TOPOFF 2 national exercise.
  • TOPOFF 3: Exercising National Preparedness - Top Officials 3 (TOPOFF 3) is the most comprehensive terrorism exercise ever conducted in the United States. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness (SLGCP), TOPOFF 3 is the third exercise in the TOPOFF Exercise Series, a Congressionally mandated exercise program. The exercise is designed to strengthen the nation's capacity to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). TOPOFF 3 is made up of a two-year cycle of seminars, planning events, and exercises culminating in a Full-Scale Exercise that simulates a coordinated terrorist attack involving biological and chemical weapons. The Full-Scale Exercise will take place April 4-8, 2005.
  • Transportation Employee and Supervisor Security Awareness Training - AASHTO, through the National Transit Institute, has developed training material to provide highway workers with basic familiarization with homeland security issues and situations.
  • Transportation Security Education and Training - This TRB circular summarizes the transportation security education and training presentations at the TRB's 83rd Annual Meeting, January 2004.

Incident Command System Training

  • Basics of the Incident Command System - This briefing provides basic information on what ICS is and how it works.
  • ICS Training for Transportation Course Development Preliminary Lesson Plan (HTML, DOC 365KB)- FHWA, through the National Highway Institute, is developing a course in the Incident Command System for transportation agency personnel.
  • FEMA ICS Training - FEMA provides several online courses in ICS.

To view DOC files, you need the Microsoft Word Viewer.