The CCO Service Truck Crane Operator (STC) designation certifies operators of service truck cranes – the small telescopic cranes, typically 10 to 35 feet of boom and 1 to 7 tons of capacity, mounted on service trucks and worked by remote or pendant control from the ground. Its written examination stands alone: a single examination of 80 questions in 90 minutes, with no Core examination. Certification also requires a practical examination, runs five years, and is restricted to service truck cranes. This program covers the written examination only.
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What this designation certifies
The service truck crane is the smallest crane in the mobile world and, by hours worked, one of the busiest: a telescopic crane of roughly one to seven tons, mounted on the mechanic’s, propane, tyre-service, or utility truck that also carries the tools, the parts, and the crew. Its operator typically works alone or in a pair, stands on the ground beside the load, and runs the crane by radio remote or pendant – walking with the load rather than sitting above it. The STC designation certifies exactly that work. It sits inside the Mobile Crane Operator handbook as a subcategory of the fixed-cab telescopic designation, but it is examined on its own terms: one written examination, no Core, plus a practical, for a certification restricted to service truck cranes. This program covers the written examination only.
What makes the service truck its own examination is the operating position and the working pattern. The operator on the ground sees the load at eye level, judges radius by walking it, and controls the crane from wherever the remote gives the best view – which multiplies both the operator’s information and the operator’s exposure: the person at the controls is also the person nearest the load. The picks are short, frequent, and improvised around real work – an engine out of a chassis, a tank onto a pad, a compressor at a wellhead – on ground that is a yard, a roadside, or a customer’s gravel. The handbook’s machine definition keeps the family honest: a telescopic boom whose base and mast are not integral to the stabiliser system, lifting typically by winch, worked from the ground.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Certification | CCO Service Truck Crane Operator (STC) — a restricted certification covering service truck cranes only, examined within the CCO Mobile Crane Operator handbook |
| Written examination | One single written examination. There is no Core-plus-specialty split for STC |
| Written examination format | 80 multiple-choice questions, 90 minutes; calculator use is not permitted |
| Domain emphasis | Operations carries the outline’s heaviest weight at approximately 45% of the examination; site, technical knowledge, and manufacturers’ load charts make up the remainder |
| Passing standard | CCO does not publish a percentage passing standard for this written examination; results are determined under CCO’s criterion-referenced scoring |
| Eligibility | At least 18 years of age; compliance with the CCO Substance Abuse Policy; agreement to the CCO Code of Ethics |
| Practical examination | A separate CCO practical examination on a service truck crane is also required for certification. This PassProfessor program does not cover it |
| Scope of certification | Restricted: STC certifies the holder for service truck cranes only. Holders of the broader TSS designation do not need STC; STC alone does not cover other telescopic cranes |
| Certification period | Five years; the written and practical examinations must both be passed within 12 months of each other |
| Written examination fee | CCO fee: $210 for the STC written examination (a third-party fee per the CCO fee schedule effective January 1, 2024) |
| Administrator | CCO — the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO). PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with CCO or OSHA |
What the written examination covers
The outline tells the story of the work: operations takes approximately 45% of the examination, a weight no other designation in the suite gives any single domain, because the service truck operator’s risk concentrates in operating decisions made alone, at ground level, around loads handled all day. Site work – where a working truck can stand, how stabilisers meet gravel and asphalt – takes its share. Technical knowledge covers the small machine’s real systems: winches, ropes, hydraulic and electric drives, remote controls and their failure behaviour. Manufacturers’ load charts close the outline at a modest weight, reflecting charts that are simpler than the big telescopic books but no less binding for that.
Site — ~17%
The site domain examines where a working service truck can honestly stand: ground bearing under stabilisers on gravel, asphalt, soil, and concrete; the truck’s position relative to the pick and the road; overhead hazards at yards and premises, led by power lines; and the space a ground-standing operator needs to work and to escape. It is site judgement scaled to a machine that sets up a dozen times a week in places nobody surveyed.
Operations — ~45%
Operations is the examination: nearly half the sitting. It examines running the service truck crane across its working day – pre-operation checks, stabiliser setup, remote and pendant control discipline and what happens when a control fails, load handling and control at ground level, positioning of the operator and helpers relative to the load, travelling and parking the truck-crane unit, and shutdown. Its standard is the handbook’s, applied to the most informal corner of the crane world, which is precisely the point of examining it.
Technical Knowledge — ~21%
The technical domain covers the small machine’s real systems: telescopic boom and winch, wire rope and its inspection at small scale, hydraulic and electric drive, stabilisers, the truck interface – power take-off and mounting – and remote control systems, their batteries, ranges, and failure behaviour. It also carries the stability physics of a light crane on a working truck, where the load in the truck bed is part of the machine’s state.
Manufacturers’ Load Charts — ~17%
The chart domain examines reading the service truck’s manufacturer charts: capacity by boom length and radius, stabiliser configuration, the effect of the operator’s working position around the truck, and deductions appropriate to the small machine’s blocks and attachments. The charts are shorter than the big telescopic books; the discipline of reading the configuration before the capacity is identical.
Who this certification serves
The designation serves the operators the crane industry is built on and rarely sees: mechanics flying engines and components, propane crews setting and pulling tanks, tyre service and well-service crews, utility and municipal fleets, monument and sign crews working from service bodies. Their crane is one tool on a truck full of tools, their sites are other people’s premises, and their lifts are frequent and small – the profile that produces complacency in uncertified work and that a certification examination exists to interrupt. Employers and fleet insurers read STC as examined evidence for a machine class that older certification structures overlooked.
The written route, in order
The route is the shortest in the mobile suite. There is one written examination – 80 questions in 90 minutes, no calculator permitted – and one practical examination on a service truck crane; the two must be passed within 12 months of each other, and certification then runs five years, restricted to service truck cranes. Results are issued under CCO’s criterion-referenced scoring; CCO publishes no percentage passing standard. Candidates from the telescopic world should note the asymmetry the handbook states: the broader TSS certification covers service truck cranes, so a TSS holder needs nothing further for this work – while an STC holder’s certification reaches no further than the service truck.
What makes this examination demanding
The examination’s demand is breadth at pace under a single sitting: 80 questions across four domains, with operations consuming nearly half, means the candidate meets the whole of the service truck operator’s day – setup on bad ground, remote control discipline, load handling, charts, machine systems – in 90 minutes, with no Core sitting to have absorbed the general material first. Operators with years on the truck but informal habits meet their hardest items in operations, where the handbook’s examined standard is stricter than yard custom on load control, personnel positioning, and control-station discipline.
The credential at work
Certified service truck operators work at the industry’s highest lift frequency: dozens of picks a week, most of them small, all of them governed by the same chart and the same load-control discipline as a heavy lift. The working value of the designation is the habit set it examines – stabilisers set before the boom moves, the operator positioned with an escape path and a view, the remote treated as a control station with failure modes, and the load never over the operator’s own head or a helper’s. The credential is restricted, and the restriction is a feature: it certifies this work precisely, for the fleets and insurers who need exactly this work certified.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Built domain by domain on the outline CCO publishes. The CCO Mobile Crane Operator Candidate Handbook (REV 06/24), Service Truck Crane section prints the written examination outline for the CCO Service Truck Crane Operator written examination, and the program in the works follows that outline as its table of contents – its domains, in its proportions. Practice items are original, written for this program from the outline and the manufacturer’s chart discipline it tests; they are not examination items, not recalled items, and not another company’s items reworded.
A service truck crane operator’s exam, prepared as a service truck crane operator’s exam. The candidate this program serves runs service truck cranes – the small telescopic cranes mounted behind the cab of a mechanic’s or utility service truck, worked by remote or pendant while the operator stands on the ground. The scenario work is therefore written from that seat: a propane tank swung off a flatbed onto a pad, a compressor lifted at a wellhead, a mechanic flying an engine out of a chassis in a yard – each set up on a working truck, beside a road, on gravel. That orientation runs through the chart material as well as the operations material.
Domain-level diagnostics. Results are organised by outline domain rather than as a single score, because a single score cannot tell a candidate whether the next study hour belongs in manufacturers’ load charts or in the load charts. The outline’s heaviest domains get the deepest practice sets, in the outline’s own proportions.
Written examination only, with the boundary kept clear. PassProfessor preparation covers the written examination only. It does not cover the practical examination and it is not hands-on training. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with CCO (the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, NCCCO) or with OSHA; CCO alone administers the examinations and issues the certification.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The CCO Service Truck Crane Operator (STC) program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program. No date is promised, because the program will open when it meets the standard described above, not before.
Frequently asked questions
Does this program cover the CCO practical examination?
No. It prepares candidates for the STC written examination. Certification also requires a practical examination on a service truck crane, for which this program offers no preparation and no hands-on component.
Why is there no Core examination for STC?
Because CCO examines service truck crane work as a single, self-contained written examination: 80 questions in 90 minutes across site, operations, technical knowledge, and manufacturers’ load charts. The handbook houses STC inside the mobile crane program, but its written route does not use the Core-plus-specialty structure the other mobile designations use.
Is STC a lesser certification?
It is a restricted one, which is a different thing. STC certifies the holder for service truck cranes only, examined in depth on that work – operations alone is about 45% of the written examination. It does not certify the holder for any other crane, and the broader TSS certification, which also covers service truck cranes, is a separate and larger route.
I already hold TSS. Do I need STC?
No. The handbook treats TSS certification as covering service truck cranes; the STC route exists for operators whose work is service truck work. The asymmetry runs one way: TSS covers the service truck, STC covers nothing beyond it.
How long is STC certification valid?
Five years, under the current CCO Mobile Crane Operator Candidate Handbook, whose recertification provisions include experience-based terms for this designation.
What does CCO charge for the written examination?
Per the CCO fee schedule effective January 1, 2024, the STC written examination fee is $210 – a third-party fee charged by CCO for its own examination.
Is there a percentage I must score?
CCO publishes no percentage passing standard for this examination; results are determined under CCO’s criterion-referenced scoring. A percentage quoted by anyone else is not CCO’s figure.
Is PassProfessor part of CCO?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with CCO (the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, NCCCO) or OSHA. The program confers no certification and reports nothing to CCO.
What counts as a service truck crane under the handbook?
A crane with a telescopic boom whose base and mast are not integral to the stabiliser or outrigger system, lifting typically by winch, with booms typically running 10 to 35 feet and capacities typically 1 to 7 tons, usually operated by radio remote or pendant with the operator standing on the ground.
Can I use a calculator on the examination?
No. Calculator use is not permitted on the STC written examination. Its arithmetic is kept light by design; the sitting’s pressure is pace and breadth, not computation.