Design of a Qualification Model for Tehran Urban Bus Drivers

Drivers’ qualification is the main prerequisite for improving productivity and safety of the public fleet of urban buses. This study aims to present a comprehensive and indigenous model for the qualification of Tehran urban bus drivers.

The grounded theory qualitative research method was used in this paper. This method is used for research topics with little previously established literature. There has been no previous indigenous study for the comprehensive qualification of Tehran bus drivers using qualitative research methods. The results can be considered as the cornerstone of domestic qualification of urban bus drivers. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. Initially, 15 experts were selected to be interviewed. They had academic and professional backgrounds in diverse transportation disciplines. The homogeneous non-probability purposive sampling method was used to select the experts. The responses of only 10 experts were used as theoretical saturation was attained.

The codes derived from qualitative interviews resulted in an indigenous qualification model of bus drivers. In the open coding, axial coding, and selective coding stages, 77, 23, and 17 codes were extracted, respectively. The validity and reliability of the research were confirmed statistically.

A conceptual framework was designed for the qualification of urban bus drivers based on a model with seven dimensions including general qualification criteria, physical health, psychological health, driving knowledge, driving skills, communication skills, and cognitive capacity.