UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

The Institute of Transportation Studies has undertaken a year long study aimed at increasing our knowledge of organizational structure in the transit industry and its relationship to performance and attitudes of employees. This report is a preliminary discussion of the results. Analysis of the data collected in July of 1978 has not been completed so the conclusions and interpretations put forth in this report must be considered tentative and subject to change. The following discussion will be based on the interviews with general managers of the transit properties visited. It will attempt to incorporate some of the more subjective impressions and less quantifiable information contained in the interviews. 

This study collected data from 16 transit properties in California. The sample includes a representative cross section ranging in size from 21 to 837 buses and from 50 to 2000 employees and includes a variety of service areas, population densities and types of operations. In all but one case, the general manager was interviewed by the researchers. 

This report is divided into three sections based on the information obtained in the interviews and subjective impressions of the interviewers: structural variations, factors influencing structure, and uses of structure by management. Although the research project studies attitude and performance in addition to structure, the attitude and performance data is still being compiled and analyzed at this time. Consequently this report will be concerned primarily with structure and its components.