Strengthening the Transportation Cybersecurity Workforce: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Workforce Development, Organizational Preparedness and Cross-Sector Collaboration

The rapid digitalization of transportation systems has expanded the cyberattack surface of critical infrastructure while exposing significant shortages in transportation-specific cybersecurity workforce capacity. Existing workforce studies rarely integrate transportation-sector workforce development, organizational preparedness, operational technology (OT) challenges, and interdisciplinary collaboration within a unified analytical framework. In response to this gap, this study employs a mixed-methods approach that integrates Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) text analysis of publicly available workforce development documents, qualitative interviews with academics, policymakers, and transportation cybersecurity professionals, and organizational survey analysis to examine workforce development challenges across transportation subsectors. The findings reveal persistent information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) competency gaps, curriculum–industry misalignment, organizational staffing shortages, disparities in cybersecurity preparedness, and the critical importance of experiential learning and dedicated cybersecurity staffing. The study further emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary education, organizational capacity building, and sustained collaboration among academia, government, and industry to strengthen the transportation cybersecurity workforce’s readiness and resilience. Collectively, the findings position transportation cybersecurity workforce development as a systems-coordination challenge that requires long-term strategic investment, cross-sector collaboration, and workforce innovation to enhance the security, resilience, and operational continuity of transportation systems.