Transport Committee on Sept. 11th, 2017

[Kathleen Fox]

First, most of this technology is on board the aircraft, vessel, or, in this case, train. It's not something that lends itself to automatic download necessarily. The specifics of that is part of what will be determined as part of the regulations in terms of who will have access. Those details will be worked out as the department works through the regulations, consults with industry and other stakeholders, as well as ourselves in terms of how those processes are going to work.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

In your experience, when LVVRs were being looked at by your department and by industry, in general, and by the department, were other jurisdictions studied that use it, and over a period of time, when they rolled it out, have they seen a net change or net decrease in incidents?

[Kathleen Fox]

I'll ask Mr. Jang to respond in terms of the LVVR study.

[Kirby Jang]

The LVVR study was actually a review of several pilot studies. In each case, each of those four were at a very early pilot stage, and in terms of capturing trends of accident decreases, that wasn't available nor initially a scope of the activity.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Certainly, they are useful as tools for reconstructing accident re-creation, causation, and all those sorts of things, which is your key mandate, but it's uncertain on their ability in and of themselves to reduce accidents. Is that a fair statement, or has that been studied?

[Kirby Jang]

There were clear indications that having recordings available allowed you to get better insight in terms of the actions, decisions, and interactions that occurred prior to any particular scenario of interest. Again, in our analysis, we looked at 37 different situations. None of them were specific accidents or incidents, but they were scenarios that we identified. In each case we were able to identify something about it that allowed us to better understand what was happening over that short period of time.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

In your experience, in rail accidents and incidents, your department is then tasked to investigate. What are the top three factors or causations related to accidents? We hear a lot, on Parliament Hill as parliamentarians, about fatigue, training, and a range of issues.

Do you have an itemized top three causes for some of these incidents?

[Kirby Jang]

As mentioned earlier, essentially, there are three streams of analysis: infrastructure, mechanical and operations, or human factors.

In each case, we've identified decreases in the infrastructure and mechanical part of it, but the proportion of human factors has been increasing. Much of the follow-up that we've conducted on these various investigations have led to recommendations, and some of those recommendations have been highlighted as part of watch-list issues.

In terms of the general safety issues that are of highest priority in the railway industry, perhaps we can draw you to our watch-list. A few that come to mind immediately are following signal indications; fatigue, certainly, has been added; and on-board voice and video recorders allow us to better understand some of the interactions and causations of accidents.

[Kathleen Fox]

Let me just add one thing. We've been focusing a lot on identifying the things that go wrong, or mistakes that may be made in the locomotive cab, but it's also a way of capturing best practices and sharing best practices across the locomotive, engineer, and conductor workforce, in terms of why it is that some people do certain things that keep them from maybe missing a signal or that improve communications within the crew. If those best practices can be shared as part of the initial training, etc., that's just going to help the system overall.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We move on to Monsieur Aubin.

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

Thank you once again, Madam Chair.

When we study a bill that is as comprehensive as Bill C-49, we can make amendments to its content. We can also say what the bill is missing and talk about amendments that should be part of it.

I understand your position on voice and video recorders. However, last year, a study on aviation safety showed that many recommendations issued by the TSB remained without a response.

When it comes to rail transportation, or any other mode of transportation, as Bill C-49 is broad in scope, are there two or three priority issues—aside from voice and video recorders—you would like us to add to such an important bill as Bill C-49?

[Kathleen Fox]

I remind you of our watchlist of key safety issues. When it comes to railway transportation, we talked about the transportation of flammable liquids, and there are other actions to be taken. Although Transport Canada has been in the process of implementing a number of measures since 2013, there are still measures that could be adopted to reduce the risks associated with transporting dangerous goods.

In fact, we just issued two other recommendations in the wake of two accidents in northern Ontario. Transport Canada considers all the factors that affect the severity of a derailment. It also considers all the rail-related conditions that could affect rail structure. So we have submitted a number of recommendations that would help reduce those risks.

Fatigue is another issue. We have identified a problem related to fatigue with crews operating freight trains. Their schedule is less specific than that of passenger train crews. We feel that Transport Canada could do more with the industry and use scientific data to make changes to employees' schedules in order to reduce fatigue.

In addition, a number of incidents and accidents have occurred because crews misinterpreted certain signals. We hope that the recorders will give us a better idea in that respect. However, technology systems could be used to slow down or stop a train before a collision or a derailment occurs.

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

In light of the examples you are giving me, which are entirely relevant, should the review of a piece of legislation—like the one we are currently doing—include the revision of the modus operandi between the time the TSB issues a recommendation and the time the government takes action? I feel that the government's slow response to some recommendations is also a significant risk factor.

[Kathleen Fox]

In October 2016, the TSB, when updating its watchlist of key safety issues, mentioned, for the first time, Transport Canada's slowness in implementing some of its recommendations. At the time, 52 recommendations were over 10 years old and about 36 of them were over 20 years old. That list includes some recommendations related to the railway sector, but most of them have to do with aviation.

We would like measures to be taken, not only by the department, but also by the government. We would also like the safety-related recommendations to be implemented more promptly.

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

Do I have any time left, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Aubin, I let you go over because I thought the information was really valuable and your questions were right on.

Ms. Block, you have six minutes.

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

Okay.

I want to go back to the questions my colleague was asking concerning the permitted uses and the protection of workers and follow up your last response to him, which referenced what this information will be collected for in investigating incidents and accidents, but which also said it may be used to identify best practices.

I'll just observe that I'm going to be interested in seeing how you marry the random sampling of data by companies with the fact that for the protection of the workers there will not be continuous monitoring. I don't know how you capture best practices and those kinds of things if you're not actually monitoring continuously. I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays itself out in the regulations.

I want to follow up on the fact that you commented on the watch-list. You said that this was something you had identified many years ago on your watch-list. Is there anything else on your watch-list that perhaps should have been included here in Bill C-49 or that you would have liked to see included?

[Kathleen Fox]

We're very pleased to see that the Minister of Transport is moving forward with respect to the requirement to install voice and video recorders without waiting for the review of the Railway Safety Act. Of course, that leads to consequential changes to our act, so we're pleased about it.

Certainly there are other issues we would like to see, but many of them don't necessarily require changes to legislation. They could involve mandatory requirements for new equipment, or they could involve regulations. We're pleased to see the LVVR issue coming forward. We think it is appropriate at this juncture to consider the expanded use of this information, for the companies and for Transport Canada.

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

It is my understanding that Canadian regulations mandate that cockpit voice recorders only retain information captured in the last two hours of each flight. Is anything like that, within the use of the LVVRs, being contemplated in this legislation?

[Kathleen Fox]

I would like to clarify that the current Canadian regulations for the retention of cockpit voice recordings is only for 30 minutes. The TSB, following the accidents, recommended a minimum of two hours, which is the international standard.

With respect to LVVR recordings, the duration—how long—is something that will be worked out as part of the regulations. We would prefer longer, because often the seeds of an occurrence can happen much earlier than even two hours before, but those details will be worked out as part of the regulations.

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

I have one final question. As the owner and operator of an LVVR, would a railway company have a duty to discipline employees if they spot unsafe behaviour during SMS monitoring? Perhaps that's where the question of being liable arises. If you know something, see something, but are just seeing it for monitoring purposes, what duty would you, the owner-operator, have to act once you have this information?

[Kathleen Fox]

Again, some of these details will be worked out as part of the regulations.

Right now, under the provisions of Bill C-49 the information gathered as part of random sampling or resulting from an incident or accident investigation conducted by the railway company may not be used for disciplinary purposes, competence, or for judicial proceedings unless it involved tampering with the equipment or there were a threat to safety determined as part of that sampling.

What constitutes a threat to safety remains to be determined under the regulations. This is why we are emphasizing that those regulations and the powers of enforcement have to be strong to make sure there's not inappropriate use or misuse of the data by those who have access to it.

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

Just really quickly, once those regulations are set, what's the process for any comment on the regulations? I think I know, but I just want you to clarify that.

[Kathleen Fox]

I want to be clear that the regulations would be enacted pursuant to the Railway Safety Act, which means they are Transport Canada's regulations. They're not TSB regulations. Transport Canada has a well-established policy and practice in that it has to go through consultation, Treasury Board, economy impact analysis, Canada Gazette, part I, etc. That's a process that's well established, but it's under Transport Canada's authority, not under ours.

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

Thank you.