Guild News

Immersive Learning Simulations 2008 360° Report
03/20/2008

Case Study – Transit Training in Immersive Virtual Reality

uMind shares its experience in helping Sociéte de Transport de Montréal embrace immersive learning simulations to significantly improve transportation safety while decreasing costs.

Excerpt from the study

Montreal’s Transit Commission (STM)

Today, Montreal’s public transit commission, The Sociéte de Transport de Montréal (STM) is one of the early adopters of uMind’s Intelligent Simulation-Based Training (SBT) Systems for internal training needs. STM’s vision in 2004 was to slowly work towards an innovative training medium that would reduce their training time and costs by as much as 50%, while maintaining superior performance. Recent industry trends, namely, increasing turnover rates, anticipated retirements, and the rate of change of equipment and technologies at the STM, drove this vision.

The transit industry is struggling to cope with an exponential increase in training needs for vehicle operation, maintenance, and security protocols. By its very nature, such training is both staff and resource intensive. Given the high cost associated with this critical-type training, the STM could no longer afford to ignore the benefits of Immersive Learning Simulations.

By nature, employee training at the STM revolves around hard-skill training and how-to scenarios. Hence, to effectively communicate their training in a fraction of the time and cost, the STM turned to full-immersion simulation-based-training to deliver realistic, yet risk free, training practices. Let’s look at the STM’s training cycle evolution.

STM’s winning formula: A blended training approach

Every new employee hired by Montreal’s Transit Authority must undergo the Safety and Security Program, whose objective is to achieve the highest practical level of safety and security. While the courses in this program range from radio communication to equipment handling, one of the courses focuses on maintenance of a subway tunnel. The course “Cheminement dans un tunnel” (Safe Walkthrough in a Subway Tunnel) specifically targets subway operators and maintenance personnel. Traditionally, it took two modes to deliver this training program, the first being inside the framework of a classroom via a certified instructor, while the second was inside a subway tunnel, where they ex- pect the learner is to apply this newly acquired knowledge under the supervision of his instructor.

Using a blended learning approach, they now give this course in three distinctive phases:
PHASE 1: Theory (e-Learning inside the framework of a classroom);
PHASE 2: Immersive Learning Simulations (in the framework of a classroom); and,
PHASE 3: On-Site Training (inside a subway tunnel).

Click here to download the report from The Learning Guild.