Urgent action needed to improve bus safety: Transportation Safety Board

Teresa Wright, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The head of the Transportation Safety Board says Ottawa needs to move fast on better national “crashworthiness” standards for buses and other commercial passenger vehicles in light of two deadly bus collisions over the last year.

Last week’s double-decker transit bus crash in Ottawa that killed three people and injured 23 others, as well as the Humboldt hockey-team bus collision that killed 16 and injured 13 last April, highlight the need for passenger buses to meet stricter safety guidelines, says TSB chair Kathy Fox.

“We know that these buses don’t have to meet the same standards that our cars have to meet or that school buses have to meet, and we think that needs to change because in some types of collisions, they don’t necessarily have the kind of protection that passengers should be able to expect when they’re travelling on public transport.”

Calls have been made for the federal agency to lead the investigation into the Ottawa bus crash, as it did when another double-decker OC Transpo bus collided with a moving passenger train in 2013, killing six people. The involvement of the train in that case allowed the TSB to head the investigation, with authority to compel evidence and provide national recommendations.

The Ottawa and Humboldt crashes did not fall within the federal agency’s jurisdiction because they only involved road vehicles.

However, Fox says the TSB has a particular interest in the Ottawa crash because of key findings from the 2013 OC Transpo collision investigation. It found large vehicles over 26,000 pounds in Canada are not required to meet the same standards as smaller passenger vehicles or school buses when it comes to front-impact, side-impact, rollover or crush protection.

In Friday’s crash, the upper deck of the Ottawa city bus hit a shelter, whose roof cut several rows deep into the bus’s right side. Many of the injured survivors required amputations.

The 2013 probe also called for all commercial passenger buses to be equipped with event data recorders, similar to those required for planes, trains and marine vessels.

Rob Johnston, who led the investigation into the 2013 crash, says the OC Transpo double-decker bus did meet all applicable safety standards. The problem is, those standards need to be strengthened, he says.

“The deficiency really lies with the Canadian motor-vehicle safety standards with regards to vehicles in excess of 26,000 (pounds),” he said.

“Without those standards being improved upon, there is going to be some risk,” he said, acknowledging that many people do travel safely on these vehicles daily.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau was not made available for an interview, but in a statement, his office said steps have been taken to address the recommendations from the 2013 TSB investigation.

“We have completed a review of accident data from urban centres to support the potential development of a standard for crashworthiness,” said Garneau’s media-relations manager Delphine Denis.

“Work is already underway to bolster this review through tests on bus structures to inform next steps.”

The last interaction Transport Canada had with the TSB on this work was a year ago, Fox says. She was encouraged to hear the department is taking the recommendations into consideration and doing some research. But in the meantime, the Humboldt and Ottawa crashes have killed more Canadians.

“That just reinforces for us that Transport (Canada) needs to expedite their activities to implement crashworthiness standards for passenger buses, because we recognize that it’s going to take time,” Fox said.

“There is some urgency that they take action… This is a Canadian issue, it’s not just an issue in Ottawa.”

Ottawa police are continuing to investigate the cause of Friday’s crash.