Transport Committee on April 4th, 2019

[Michael DeJong]

There has been a significant decline over the last 30 years. The overall road safety statistics in that area have shown a decline of 30% in fatalities over the last 30 years, and that decline is even more pronounced in the context of school buses.

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

When we talk about the accidents that are the subject of the current study, we always have two types of vehicles in mind, either the bus used to transport passengers or the large-format school bus, which can carry 47 passengers.

What are Transport Canada's proposals or regulations for other types of transportation? There are, for example, smaller buses that carry up to 20 or 25 passengers. There are also models of stretch vans that can carry about 15 passengers. As a former teacher myself, I can tell you about it, because I have already seen quite serious, even catastrophic accidents in my region involving these smaller vehicles.

Are they subject to the same standards as school buses?

[Michael DeJong]

We do have statistics around large school buses versus small school buses. In fact, the small school bus safety record is exceptionally strong. Where there were injuries and fatalities over the period of 1992 to 2017 in large school buses, there were none in terms of small buses.

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

My concern is more about these Econoline minivans that can be rented from companies like Avis, for example. They require an additional class on the driving licence.

Are these minivans regulated as road vehicles or school buses?

[Michael DeJong]

With respect to the Canada motor vehicle safety standards, there are 18 standards that are broadly applicable to buses.

An example where I would say Transport Canada has taken it a step further in terms of smaller buses would be with respect to electronic stability control systems. For example, in the U.S., the electronic stability control systems, or ESCS, are applicable only to large buses, whereas in Canada we've taken it a step further to include medium-sized buses as well as school buses. We're the only jurisdiction in North America to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Aubin.

Thank you to our witnesses. We very much appreciate it.

If you could forward to the clerk some of the various reports that you've referenced, we would appreciate it.

We will suspend for a moment until the next witness is here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call this meeting back to order.

Our next witness is Vicky Kyriaco, General Manager and Chief Administrative Officer of the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority.

Thank you very much for taking the time to come today. We look forward to your testimony.

You have five minutes, please, and then we'll have questions from the committee members.

[Vicky Kyriaco, General Manager and Chief Administrative Officer, Ottawa Student Transportation Authority]

Thank you very much for inviting me to participate on this panel about the important topic of school bus safety.

I will also be able to answer your questions in French.

Student safety is the number one priority for OSTA and for our member school boards, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Ottawa Catholic School Board. We provide motorized transportation services for 70,000 children and active transportation programs for 45,000 students who walk, bike and roll to school.

Safety is dependent on a number of factors, and we use risk assessment and mitigation along with probability of outcomes in our determination. In the absence of reliable and relevant data, what is considered safe may be open to interpretation and can be subjective. What the public considers reasonable also comes into play. School buses have consistently been the safest vehicles on the road based on passenger kilometres travelled. The question is whether seat belts make the school bus even safer.

Some 20 years ago, one of our yellow buses was hit broadside by a truck, and one child died in that collision, but since then no student has suffered life-threatening injuries or loss of life due to a collision in our system. ln fact, last year one of our buses was T-boned by a crane. The bus driver, who was belted in, expired, but the student walked away without injuries.

It is essential that studies be conducted to reflect Canadian conditions and expectations. Reliance on accident statistics in southern United States does very little to address the way we do things up here in the Great White North. To wit, I could not find a single image of students in snowsuits wearing seat belts on a bus.

Why are snowsuits and other winter wear, such as mittens, such an important consideration? First of all, the snowsuit limits the child's ability to move freely, limits dexterity and can become jammed in the seat belt mechanism. The snowsuit padding can give the impression of a tight seat belt at the time of attachment and can become compressed during collision impact, leading to excess space between the body and the seat. This slack then potentially allows the body to float and to slide out of the restraints, increasing the risk of injury.

We believe the following studies should be considered. First is the physical ability and manual dexterity required of children as young as three and a half years old to correctly attach the lap belt and adjust the shoulder belt to avoid stomach, neck and back injuries. Members on our Regional Safe Schools Committee express the thought that of the 10,000 kindergarten students we transport, only some would master this skill by the end of the school year, and even students up to grade 3 would find seat belts challenging.

Then, test the ability of children to undo the belt in the event of an emergency with the bus right side up, lying on its side, and on its roof. Based on one bus fire we experienced four years ago, the lone student who evacuated the bus said, “I got off and turned around, and the bus went poof!” We anticipate that a busload of 70 children in full winter gear will not be able to undo their seat belts and evacuate a burning bus as quickly as is necessary to avoid smoke inhalation and burns, particularly if the bus is on its side or upside down.

Third is the possibility for seat belts themselves to cause injury or death under the following conditions: first, incorrect or improper adjustments by the student—from the online images showing kids wearing seat belts on school buses, it appears that at least half of them are not actually wearing the belts properly; second, the way students might use the belt to hit or choke themselves or other students; third, injury to students who are not clipped into their belt at all.

The physical ability and dexterity of students with different types of special needs—these are both mobility and cognitive—to attach and to undo their seat belts in an emergency should be tested. Our goal is inclusivity and independence rather than isolation. The use of seat belts adds a level of complexity for many students who find it challenging and rewarding just to be on a regular yellow bus.

Finally would come general crash testing with and without seat belts for front, rear, side and rollover collisions at slow, mid-range and high speeds.

From a purely operational perspective, the implementation of seat belts on buses would radically change the way we deliver services in the Ottawa region. First of all, it would exacerbate our growing driver shortage because of the added responsibility, potential personal liability and demerit points due to tickets for minors in their care who don't wear their seat belts.

A proposed mitigation plan would be to engage bus monitors. lt is unlikely that we would be able to hire 650 to 1,000 part-time people for this work, given the labour market in Ottawa. The added time required to attach belts, along with the time required to deal with students who remove their seat belts in transit, would no longer allow OSTA to plan routes that service two or three schools in a row. We estimate that an additional 100 or more buses would be required to transport the same number of students.

With a lack of drivers and bus monitors, and lack of additional funding, we would need to cut service for at least 15,000 students to implement seat belts. The risk to the safety of these children would actually increase as they are relegated to other vehicles that are much less safe than yellow school buses, such as cars and city buses.

The consideration, then, after all the studies are completed, is this. Would parents choose seat belts on buses even if it possibly meant their children could no longer access publicly funded transportation and were relegated to a less safe mode of transportation? Or would parents consider today's school buses safe enough without seat belts?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here.

Just to confirm, the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority's jurisdiction is from kindergarten to grade 12. Is that correct?

[Vicky Kyriaco]

That's correct.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I have a whole bunch of questions. To start, to sum up your position, you don't think seat belts should be on school buses.

[Vicky Kyriaco]

I think we need more studies that examine it holistically, not just what happens to crash test dummies but what happens under real circumstances. If you have snowsuits, if you have three kids to a seat, if you're going at different speeds, what ends up happening? It's not up to us, really, to determine what the requirements are on the bus. It is up to the public to determine whether they want services under certain conditions, or whether they desire them under other conditions. We would follow whatever the government decides, as we have done so far.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Would you base your determination solely on safety, not on the financial aspect of repercussions to the OSTA?

[Vicky Kyriaco]

I'm not sure I understand your question.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Are you basing the need or lack of need for seat belts 100% on the safety of kids, not necessarily on the financial repercussions that would be felt by the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority?

[Vicky Kyriaco]

Every determination of what is safe is dependent on data. If we don't have data, we look at what public expectations are. That's true of any decisions we make regarding safety, whether it's a snow day or whether it's how we assess walking hazards so that we can make exceptions due to walking hazards. When we do route audits and determine whether an operator is in compliance with his contract, there's always an estimation and a balance between what our stakeholders would expect to be reasonable under the circumstances and what would be unreasonable.

When we start looking at the cost of any of these kinds of decisions, it still falls into what would be considered reasonable and what's unreasonable. At the end of the day, it's the parents and the government that will work together to decide whether safety belts are more important than the provision of transportation to a greater number of students.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

You're one student transportation authority. Would this be consistent across the board with your colleagues or counterparts at other authorities?

[Vicky Kyriaco]

I think our positions are very similar, whether it's driver shortages or how to approach seat belts. Some have seen positive experiences with using seat belts, but under situations where there's a bus monitor, where there's somebody who's actually attaching the belt and it's a small number of students.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

You said in your testimony that you would need 100 more buses. Why 100 more buses, if we're simply putting seat belts on existing buses?

[Vicky Kyriaco]

First, when we plan our routes, in order to be as efficient as possible, we maximize bus capacity utilization. Right now we try to put three to a seat. If you consider that the average seat is about 96 centimetres wide and we can seat three, we are concerned, especially with the snowsuit issue and trying to actually clip them in, that seating capacity might not be adequate.

Second, we also look at the time. We're trying to create runs where we are picking up students at their stops and delivering them to school in as short a time as possible, given traffic and other environmental conditions. The more runs we can put on a route, the more efficient that route will be. We may currently have triple routes, where we can service three schools. Because of the time it would take, for example, to attach belts and then pull over the bus to deal with students who detach their belts, that time element has to be built into the route design. We know that we won't be able to double or triple routes if we have that extra time element.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I guess I can understand your second point, but from your first point I would draw the conclusion that right now it's not safe, then, to seat three kids to a seat. By saying that now you need 100 more buses to essentially make it safe.... As a dad of two little girls who take a school bus—not in your jurisdiction, but back home—that would worry me at the end of the day, that buses aren't safe the way they currently are.

I'll give you a chance to comment. Again, I'm speaking from the perspective of a parent who has kids in the school system.

[Vicky Kyriaco]

Actually, from our perspective, three to a seat meets the manufacturer's recommendations. For us, it is safe. We don't think that adding seat belts at three-to-a-seat is operationally feasible. That would reduce the three down to two snowsuited kids per seat. That's where that efficiency scenario comes into play. We currently have three kids to a seat on 630 buses, and it's working well.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Then I would draw the conclusion that it would be about cost; it wouldn't be about safety, which was my first point.

Anyway, thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Hardie.