Transport Committee on April 4th, 2019

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

It would probably be a matter of the design of the coach that has gone onto the chassis.

[Kevin Brosseau]

Indeed.

We think it's probably in the range of $15,000 to $20,000 to retrofit a school bus.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I want to talk about speed, because the next place that people listening to this will go, after automatically assuming that seat belts are the way to go, is speed. Obviously, speed is a factor in the severity of a crash.

My concern is that if people start to say we shouldn't allow school buses to go over a certain speed, you're going to create other conflicts on the road, because it's the variance in speed among the various vehicles that actually is a contributor to crashes. In the scenario of a two-lane road out in a rural area somewhere, if the school bus is going more slowly than the traffic behind it wants to go, that traffic will speed up to get around it, and that obviously creates conflicts, and so on.

Therefore, what should we be thinking about when people bring up the speed issue in trying to manage the severity of crashes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'll ask the witnesses to hold the answer there, because Mr. Hardie's time is up. We'll try to get that answer before the end of the session.

We'll move on to Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Perhaps when I'm done asking my question we could allow the witnesses to answer Mr. Hardie's question.

I'm looking at something the Library of Parliament provided to us. They stated that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigated a September 2013 collision between an OC Transpo bus and a VIA Rail passenger train in Ottawa. I remember when that happened. The TSB issued recommendations to Transport Canada, which noted that the Canada motor vehicle safety standards did not include any “requirements for frontal impact, side impact, rollover or crush protection for vehicles...in excess of...26,000 pounds”.

Can you tell me the status of the recommendations that were made as a result of that accident?

[Kevin Brosseau]

Indeed. I'll begin and turn to Mike for further detail.

Three recommendations were made by the TSB as a result of that tragedy here in the city. The first had to deal with in-vehicle video monitor displays. We've brought forward guidelines to deal with that.

The second, which you mentioned, was with respect to crashworthiness standards. That's where I mentioned our procuring out-of-service buses to be able to do the testing, to come to standards that will properly deal with the crashworthiness of buses, which will directly address that recommendation.

You might note that their last reassessment was that we were taking too much time. I agree that we were taking too long. It's a complicated issue, but we've advanced that and we're accelerating that to be able to procure these buses and do the testing this summer. It was important work to be carried out so we can advance that and come to a conclusion one way or the other with respect to standards on crashworthiness.

The third was developing a standard with the Society of Automotive Engineers for the event data recorders on all commercial passenger buses. I think that's progressing well. The TSB remarked that this work is progressing at pace.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'll certainly allow you to respond to Mr. Hardie's question.

[Kevin Brosseau]

The question was in relation to the variances of speed. There's no doubt that sometimes this can be more of an issue, depending on the part of the country you're in. A big piece of what we're focused on is around the entry-level training of drivers and ensuring that people have the skill sets to be able to drive, with less of a focus on speed—recognizing that excessive speed for road conditions is the biggest contributor to deaths in this country. That's clearly understood, but we tend to focus beyond....

We have the structure of the vehicle itself, and then having a driver focus as well, ensuring that every driver of a commercial vehicle—a commercial bus, a commercial truck—in this country ought to have a mandatory entry-level training standard. That standard will come into force in 2020.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you again for being here.

Our brief from the library says that, as of April 2019, the available data from the national collision database is only from 1999 to 2016. Is there a reason we don't have the data up to the current date?

[Michael DeJong]

The national collision database draws from statistics assembled from each of the provinces and territories. We work closely with the provinces and territories through the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators. We depend very much on that close collaboration to be able to assemble that dataset. I'm happy to say that just recently, within the last month, the 2017 dataset has been added to the national collision database as well.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

What's the holdup? That's only 2017. We're in 2019.

[Michael DeJong]

It's simply a matter of providing sufficient time for provinces and territories to collect data—for example from coroners' offices, from hospitals and from a variety of datasets—and then to be able to scrub the numbers, validate them and provide that to Transport Canada so we can ensure comparable statistics across jurisdictions.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Are there particular provinces that are causing problems in terms of getting that data at this point in time?

[Michael DeJong]

No.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Okay.

When it comes to the statistics on crashes, fatalities and serious injuries, it seems, as we learned earlier this week in the committee, that only nine or 10 fatalities that have happened since 1999 directly involved bus crashes. I imagine that there are certainly numbers out there that would say that serious injuries also occur when these happen. Do we have statistics on what percentage of actual bus crashes involve those fatalities but also serious injuries?

[Michael DeJong]

Yes. There are some statistics we can offer in terms of school buses during that time frame. In the last decade, there was one fatality. Between 1998 and 2017, there were five. Going back to 1984, there were 23. That shows the overall decline. By comparison, between 1998 and 2017, during normal school transportation hours, there were 395 light-duty vehicle school-age passenger fatalities and 64,512 injuries; 158 school-age pedestrian fatalities and 22,629 injuries; and 41 school-age cyclist fatalities and 9,493 injuries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. DeJong, could you supply that report to the committee as well? Is that possible? Thank you.

Monsieur Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Gentlemen, I will come back to the issue of statistics. You have described compartmentalization in head-on and rear-end collisions quite eloquently. It's a concept that is contested in another report, but I'll come back to that.

Do you have any statistics that distinguish between head-on or rear-end and side-on collisions and the impact this has had on the number of people killed or seriously injured?

[Kevin Brosseau]

We have those figures, Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

What period do they cover? You don't have to say; you could send us that list.

[Kevin Brosseau]

It's the period from 2008 to 2017.

Go ahead, Michael.

[Michael DeJong]

From 2008 to 2017, rear-end collisions were the most prevalent. For example, in terms of all buses, there were a total of 18,594 collisions during that time period related to rear-end collisions. The second most prevalent were sideswipes.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Is it almost always the same from year to year, or is there an increase or decrease that could be explained by technical or technological factors?