Transport Planning Technician Apprentice Review

My job involves working on projects of a variety of scales and helping to produce material to help aid with the planning/development of the project whether this is through running simulations of an area to assess how traffic will likely act or producing maps to show how much of an impact a decision in the project is going to have on various scales of locations

I have learnt many new skills including producing maps using a variety of software to show all kinds of data sets for a variety of stakeholders as well as learning how to develop models to simulate and assess impacts of traffic on an area and report back how this is likely to affect the local area

I'm enjoying the programme a lot and feel as though I am providing a useful contribution to a number of projects both small and large scale whilst having a high level of support from staff and management around me. The level of trust that has been placed in me has also helped to make me feel welcome and truly a part of the team.

The structure of the programme is well organised and structured however I feel that the time between the studying is perhaps too long (3 months between learning blocks) because it makes it more difficult to retain the knowledge that I've gained and when we go to the next block and get asked "Do you remember from last block..." I sometimes struggle to remember and have to revisit old notes

I receive a high level of support from my organisation as there have already been times where I've had some personal issues and the support that has been shown to me by both other staff members and management has made me feel welcome and more than "just a staffnumber" which has motivated me to do even better in my work and studies.

There has been a high level of support shown from my training provider as some of the staff at the college know about my other commitments that I couldn't drop at the time and have helped me and checked in on whether I'm finding it difficult to cope with the situations.

Without the qualification and learning I've committed to I wouldn't have known how to do anything in my day to day tasks. For example I wouldn't know how best to produce higher quality maps that are actually useful to stakeholders without having first understood what key points they would likely be looking for from the materials I produce

There are plenty of extra curricular activities that I can get involved in at work, even whilst facing current pandemic difficulties. These include regular lunchtime knowledge development sessions where people present information on topics that help me, and others, to develop our thoughts and ideas about particular topics and subjects

Yes

The level of support that they have shown me and the faith that they have put in me by setting me work on larger scale projects with high reputations and expectations has made me feel so much more trusted and welcome than I thought I would have had been before I started working here.

Don't feel nervous or worried if you don't know anything about the job role you're applying for because I didn't know a single thing about transport planning when I first started and I've already learned a lot and understand a lot more after working there for just 9 or 10 months