This guide covers the CCO Telescopic Boom Crane — Fixed Cab (TSS) certification route end to end: the shared Mobile Crane Core written examination of 95 questions in 90 minutes, the TSS specialty written examination of 28 questions in 60 minutes, the Core and specialty domain outlines, the fixed-cab machine family and its load charts, the practical examination that sits outside this program, and the five-year certification that follows, all as published in CCO’s Mobile Crane Operator Candidate Handbook.
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The certification at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Certification | CCO Telescopic Boom Crane, Fixed Cab (TSS) — a specialty designation under the CCO Mobile Crane Operator program |
| Written examinations | Two: the Mobile Crane Core Examination and the Telescopic Boom — Fixed Cab (TSS) specialty examination |
| Core examination | 95 multiple-choice questions, 90 minutes; calculator use is not permitted on the Core |
| Specialty examination | 28 multiple-choice questions, 60 minutes; calculator use is permitted, and the manufacturer load chart questions sit inside it |
| Passing standard | CCO does not publish a percentage passing standard for these written examinations; 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 fixed-cab telescopic boom crane is also required for certification. This PassProfessor program does not cover it |
| Certification period | Five years; the written and practical examinations must both be passed within 12 months of each other |
| Written examination fee | CCO fee: Core $140; TSS specialty $80 (third-party fees 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 |
A fixed-cab telescopic crane puts the operator in a station that stays where it is while the upper works and boom swing above and around it. Boom trucks at delivery yards, carry deck cranes inside plants, and fixed-cab rough-terrain and truck cranes all share that arrangement, and all of them telescope: the boom extends and retracts hydraulically, which means the machine an operator sets up in the morning is, in chart terms, a different machine at every boom length. The TSS designation is CCO’s certification for exactly that family, and it is built the way the mobile crane program is built everywhere: a Core written examination every mobile candidate takes, a specialty written examination on the fixed-cab telescopic machine, and a practical examination. This program prepares candidates for the two written examinations. It does not prepare candidates for the practical.
Reading the verified facts
Every fact in the table above is stated as CCO states it in the CCO Mobile Crane Operator Candidate Handbook (REV 06/24) and the CCO fee schedule, because this designation’s candidates are ill-served by the approximations that circulate about it. Three points in the table deserve emphasis before the detail. First, the written examinations named there are the whole of what this guide – and the PassProfessor program it accompanies – prepares candidates for: CCO certification for this designation also includes a practical examination, and no page of this guide offers preparation for it. Second, the passing position: CCO does not publish a percentage passing standard for these written examinations, and this guide quotes none, because a converted or invented percentage would misstate the standard candidates are actually held to. Third, the fee lines are CCO’s charges for CCO’s examinations, labeled as third-party fees wherever they appear; they are not prices for anything PassProfessor sells.
The certification route, step by step
Step 1 — Confirm the designation fits your machine
TSS covers telescopic boom cranes with a fixed operator station. If your operator station rotates with the upper works, the designation is TLL, not TSS; if your daily machine is a service truck crane and nothing else, read the Service Truck Crane designation before you commit, because CCO examines that work under a separate restricted certification. Confirm as well that you meet the eligibility floor: at least 18, compliance with the CCO Substance Abuse Policy, and agreement to the Code of Ethics.
Step 2 — Apply to CCO and schedule the written examinations
Apply through CCO and schedule the Mobile Crane Core examination and the TSS specialty examination. The CCO written examination fees are $140 for the Core and $80 for the specialty, per the CCO fee schedule effective January 1, 2024; those are CCO’s fees, not PassProfessor’s. The two written examinations may be taken in either order, but plan them together – certification requires every element, written and practical, to be passed within 12 months of each other.
Step 3 — Sit the two written examinations
The Core is 95 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes, with no calculator permitted; work at a steady pace and do not leave questions blank. The specialty is 28 questions in 60 minutes, calculator permitted, and its manufacturer load chart questions carry the heaviest domain weight – work them from the chart printed for the configuration, taking deductions in the manufacturer’s order. CCO publishes no percentage passing standard for either examination.
Step 4 — Complete the practical examination and hold the certification
Certification is not complete at the written examinations: a CCO practical examination on a fixed-cab telescopic boom crane must also be passed within the 12-month window. This program offers no preparation for that examination. Once all elements are passed, certification runs five years, and recertification is conducted under the rules in the current candidate handbook.
The examination outline in full
Core — Site — ~22%
Site is the Core’s opening domain: evaluating the ground a telescopic crane will stand on, judging bearing capacity under outrigger floats and tracks, setting cribbing and mats, planning access and swing clearance, identifying overhead hazards including power lines, and deciding whether the site as found supports the setup the load chart assumes. For a machine that sets up wherever the work is, site judgement is not preamble – it is the first lift decision.
The guide treats site work in setup order: arrival and ground reading, the level tolerance the manufacturer sets, barricading the swing radius, and the circumstances under which the correct answer is to refuse the setup and move the machine.
Core — Operations — ~28%
Operations is the Core’s largest domain: pre-operation and shift inspections, setup and levelling, operating procedures across the pick, standard hand signals and voice communications, power line approach distances and the rules around them, pick-and-carry rules where the manufacturer permits them, and securing the crane at the end of the shift. It examines the craft of running the machine safely on an ordinary day, which is where most exposure sits.
The guide works the domain through a single job day – inspection, setup, the picks, a signal failure, deteriorating weather, shutdown – because the examination’s operations items are decision items, and decisions read best in sequence.
Core — Technical Knowledge — ~23%
Technical knowledge is the machine itself: telescopic boom structure and extension sequencing, wire rope construction and inspection, sheaves and reeving, hydraulic and electrical systems, outrigger systems, and the rated capacity limiter and anti-two-block devices the operator must understand rather than merely obey. It also carries the physics underneath the chart – leverage, centre of gravity, and stability.
The guide ties each technical topic to the failure it prevents: two-blocking, rope damage, structural overload. Candidates who can narrate the failure answer the item, whatever angle it is asked from.
Core — Load Charts — ~27%
The Core’s load chart domain teaches the universal grammar of mobile crane charts: gross and net capacity, radius and boom length, quadrants and working areas, deductions for blocks, rigging, and stowed equipment, the bold line between stability-based and structure-based ratings, and interpolation between printed values. Every mobile specialty then speaks this grammar in a manufacturer’s dialect.
The guide builds chart work from the anatomy of a chart outward – parts, notes, and warnings before numbers – because the specialty examination’s charts punish candidates who read the table and skip the notes.
Specialty — Site — ~23%
The specialty site domain narrows the Core’s site material to the fixed-cab telescopic machine: outrigger placement on the ground actually available, the effect of a fixed operator station on sight lines during setup, positioning for the picks the day requires, and re-checking the setup as the job moves the machine. It assumes the Core’s site knowledge and examines its application to this configuration.
The guide’s treatment is comparative: the same site, set up correctly and set up carelessly, with the chart consequences of each made explicit.
Specialty — Operations — ~23%
Specialty operations examines running the fixed-cab telescopic crane through its working cycle: extending and retracting under load within the chart, managing the swing from a station that does not rotate with the load, signalling arrangements that compensate for the operator’s changing view, and the procedures for the abnormal events – load drift, hydraulic failure, two-block approach – that this machine family presents.
The guide follows the load through a complete pick from the fixed seat, marking each point at which the operator’s information changes and the decisions that turn on it.
Specialty — Technical Knowledge — ~19%
The specialty technical domain covers the fixed-cab telescopic machine’s own systems in handbook depth: boom extension systems and their indicators, the operator aids fitted to this family, outrigger monitoring, and the inspection points particular to telescopic booms – wear pads, extension chains and cables, and boom section condition.
The guide organises the material as an inspection walk, top to bottom of the machine, matching the order in which a pre-operation inspection actually encounters it.
Specialty — Manufacturers’ Load Charts — ~35%
The heaviest specialty domain, and the examination’s centre: reading the specific manufacturers’ charts for fixed-cab telescopic cranes – on-outrigger and on-rubber charts, quadrant charts, boom length and jib configurations, erection and stowed-equipment deductions, and the notes that condition every number in the table. Mastery here is the difference between knowing how charts work and being able to work this chart.
The guide works full chart problems end to end – configure, deduct, interpolate, decide – and teaches the refusal as an answer: some items are passed by recognising that the chart gives no capacity for the pick as described.
The sitting itself: format, scoring, and retakes
The written route runs Core first or specialty first – CCO permits the written examinations in either order, and certification is complete only when the written examinations and the practical examination have all been passed within 12 months of each other. The Core examination is 95 questions in 90 minutes with no calculator permitted; the TSS specialty is 28 questions in 60 minutes with a calculator permitted, because its chart questions require computation rather than estimation. Candidates schedule each sitting with CCO, sit at a CCO test site, and receive results under CCO’s criterion-referenced scoring, which publishes no percentage passing standard. Certification, once complete, runs five years.
Bring the admission documents CCO issues for the sitting and identification in the name on the application. On the Core, the absence of a calculator is deliberate: the Core tests judgement and knowledge at a pace of roughly a question a minute, and arithmetic is kept simple by design. On the specialty, a calculator is permitted precisely because the chart questions are computational – use it, but write the configuration down first: boom length, radius, quadrant, outrigger position, deductions. Candidates lose specialty marks to configuration slips, not to arithmetic.
What this examination is for
The telescopic boom is the defining feature, and it changes the operator’s mathematics. A lattice boom’s length changes in sections, on the ground, before the lift; a telescopic boom changes continuously, under load, from the operator’s seat – so boom length becomes a live variable in every capacity question, and the load chart becomes a table the operator reads at the exact length, radius, and configuration of the pick rather than a rating remembered from the morning. Fixed-cab geometry adds its own discipline: the operator’s view of the load changes as the boom swings across quadrants the operator is not facing, and the chart’s capacity depends on which quadrant the pick is in. Candidates who prepare for TSS as though it were a small truck-crane exam miss both points; the examination is written for operators who track configuration continuously.
The designation in its family
The mobile crane program is a family built on a shared Core, and TSS’s place in it is the volume end: the fixed-cab telescopic machines are the cranes most construction and delivery work actually runs on, which makes TSS the designation against which the family’s structure is easiest to understand. The Core examines what all mobile operators share; the specialty examines what the fixed operator station changes. Candidates should hold the sibling map clearly. TLL is the same telescopic family with the station on the rotating upper works. LBC and LBT leave telescopes behind for lattice booms, on tracks and on carriers respectively. STC sits inside TSS’s territory as a restricted subcategory for service truck cranes, with the asymmetry the fact table records: this designation covers the service truck; the service truck’s designation covers nothing else. That map matters practically, because operators accumulate specialties across a career under the one Core, and the route in this guide – Core, this specialty’s written examination, this specialty’s practical – is the template each addition follows. It also matters for study: material borrowed from a sibling’s preparation is reliable exactly as far as the Core extends and no further, because the specialty examinations were written to separate the families, and their chart books, configurations, and operating assumptions diverge accordingly.
Preparation errors this guide is written to prevent
The specialty examination is the demanding half of this route, and it is demanding in a specific way: 28 questions is a short examination, and more than a third of it is manufacturer load chart work, so a handful of chart errors is a large share of the score. The charts are read at interpolated lengths and radii, across quadrants, with deductions for the block, rigging, and stowed attachments taken in the order the manufacturer prescribes. Preparation that treats chart reading as looking up a number, rather than as configuring the machine on paper exactly as it stands on the ground, does not survive this examination.
After the examination
A pass on both written examinations starts the 12-month clock rather than ending the process: the practical examination must be passed within 12 months of the written examinations for certification to issue. Candidates who do not pass a written examination reapply under CCO’s rules and sit again. Once certified, the credential runs five years and is portable across employers and states that recognise CCO certification; recertification requirements, including the experience-based provisions, are set out in the candidate handbook current at the time.
Working under the certification
Certified fixed-cab operators work the mobile end of the crane world: several setups a week, sometimes several a day, on ground ranging from plant concrete to graded fill. The chart discipline the examination tests is the discipline the work demands – verifying the configuration before the pick, refusing a radius the chart does not support at that length, and treating the rated capacity limiter as information rather than as permission. The designation also carries inside the mobile program: TSS certification is the designation under which CCO treats service truck cranes, and candidates whose work is exclusively on service truck cranes should note that CCO examines that work separately under the Service Truck Crane designation, with its own restricted certification.
Across a five-year term, the fixed-cab operator’s credential interacts with the rest of the mobile family in ways worth planning from the start. The Core sits underneath every later specialty, so its knowledge should be maintained rather than archived: operators who add TLL or a lattice specialty in year three return to Core material that rewards the operator who kept it warm. The term also spans handbook revisions – CCO revises its candidate handbooks on its own cycle, and the recertification position is taken from the edition current at renewal, which may state the route differently from the edition that certified you. Keep the certification’s documentation with the same care as the credential itself: employers, site owners, and insurers ask for currency, and the operator who can produce a valid credential and its dates without a search is the operator whose file closes fastest at every gate. Finally, treat the designation’s boundaries as standing knowledge on site: the day a fixed-cab operator is asked to run a swing cab machine ‘just for one pick’, the certification’s answer is the one given in this guide’s questions – the credential, and the competence it attests, are designation-specific.
A preparation plan that respects the outline
Build the plan on the outline’s weights, not on habit. Open with the domain the outline weights most heavily for this designation, because it is where the sitting is decided; then work the remaining domains in outline order, keeping a running record, domain by domain, of where practice performance is thin. Reserve complete timed sittings – at the examination’s real question count and time limit – for the final stage of the plan, and take them under examination conditions: no pauses, no references, scratch paper only for configuration notes. Work the specialty chart sets last in every week, not first: the Core’s site and operations material is what makes chart questions answerable under time pressure, because most chart errors in practice are configuration errors – the wrong quadrant, an outrigger position carried over from a previous setup. Finish the plan with two full timed specialty sittings back to back, then leave a quiet day before the real sitting. The companion PassProfessor program page describes the preparation program itself, which is in the works; this guide stands on its own as the route and outline reference for the designation.
Study method for this designation is configuration bookkeeping. Keep a notebook – paper is fine – in which every practice chart problem is opened with a written configuration line: boom length, radius, quadrant, outrigger state, attachments stowed or erected, deductions listed. Work problems in pairs that differ in exactly one configuration element, so the chart’s sensitivity to that element becomes felt knowledge rather than a warning. For the Core domains, study in job order rather than outline order at least once: a full day narrated – arrival, inspection, setup, picks, a signal problem, weather, shutdown – with the handbook’s rules attached to each hour. The specialty rewards the operator who thinks in configurations under time pressure, and that is a trainable habit, not a talent: fifty problems worked with the configuration line written out will do more for the specialty score than two hundred worked by eye.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fixed cab on a TSS crane?
The operator’s station is fixed: it does not rotate with the upper works as the boom swings. Boom trucks, carry deck cranes, and fixed-cab truck and rough-terrain cranes are built this way, and the arrangement shapes the operator’s sight lines, the signalling arrangements a crew needs, and the way the load chart’s quadrants are worked.
How long are the two written examinations?
The Core examination allows 90 minutes for 95 questions, with no calculator permitted. The TSS specialty allows 60 minutes for 28 questions, with a calculator permitted. The specialty’s pace is slower per question because its heaviest domain is manufacturer load chart computation.
Which domain should dominate my study time?
On the specialty examination, manufacturers’ load charts, at roughly 35% of the items – the heaviest single domain in either sitting. On the Core, operations, site, technical knowledge, and load charts are weighted within a few points of each other, so Core preparation has no safe domain to skip.
What kinds of deductions do the chart questions use?
The standard ones the Core’s chart domain teaches: the hook block, rigging, stowed jibs and attachments, and any auxiliary equipment the manufacturer’s notes require to be deducted, taken in the order and manner the chart’s notes prescribe for the configuration in the question.
Do I need experience to sit the written examinations?
CCO’s published eligibility requirements for the mobile crane program are age (at least 18), compliance with the Substance Abuse Policy, and agreement to the Code of Ethics. Experience is not a stated prerequisite for the written examinations; it is, in practice, what the practical examination and the work itself demand.
What happens if I pass the written examinations but not the practical?
Certification does not issue. All elements – Core written, specialty written, and practical – must be passed within 12 months of each other; an element that falls outside the window must be retaken under the rules in the current handbook.
How does TSS interact with OSHA’s rules?
OSHA’s standard for cranes in construction, 29 CFR 1926 Subpart CC, is the regulatory framework the CCO handbook invokes; among other things it requires operators of covered cranes to be certified, and CCO certification is one recognised route. This guide explains the handbook’s framework; it is not legal advice and CCO and OSHA publish the governing texts.
Can a TSS-certified operator run a swing cab crane?
Not on the TSS credential alone. Swing cab telescopic cranes sit under the TLL designation, with its own specialty written and practical examinations. Operators who work both families commonly hold both specialties under the shared Core.
What is a rated capacity limiter, in examination terms?
A device that monitors the load moment against the chart and warns the operator – and in some configurations intervenes – as the crane approaches rated capacity. The examinations test what it measures, what it cannot measure, and the rule that it informs the operator rather than replacing the operator’s own chart work.
Why is no calculator allowed on the Core?
Because the Core is designed as a knowledge and judgement examination whose arithmetic is deliberately light; the computational weight of the mobile program sits in the specialty examinations, where a calculator is permitted. Prepare for the Core at pace, and for the specialty with a pencil, a configuration note, and the calculator.
What does the five-year certification require at renewal?
Recertification is governed by the candidate handbook current at the time, which sets out the recertification examination and the experience provisions that interact with it. Read the current handbook rather than relying on the rules as they stood when you certified.
I hold TSS and want to add TLL. What carries over?
The Core examination is shared across the mobile crane designations, so adding a specialty is a matter of the new specialty’s written and practical examinations under the rules in the current handbook – confirm the details with CCO before applying, as designation rules are CCO’s to set.
Does this guide teach practical examination skills?
No. This guide, like the program it accompanies, covers the written examinations. The practical examination is a hands-on assessment on the machine, and no written preparation – this one included – substitutes for supervised time operating a fixed-cab telescopic crane.
Where do the facts in this guide come from?
From CCO’s Mobile Crane Operator Candidate Handbook (REV 06/24) and the CCO fee schedule effective January 1, 2024 – the primary sources listed in this file’s INTERNAL section. Where a fact could not be verified against those sources, it was left out rather than filled in.