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

Transport committee  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.

Transport committee  I would prefer not to use the word “liable” in the sense that it is not our mandate to determine liability but I would certainly say “accountable”. We will point out any deficiencies that we identify, whether those are in infrastructure, procedures, training, or personnel, through the conduct of our investigation.

Transport committee  Yes, and I can give you a concrete example. We don't do surface. We don't do roadways per se, but certainly we do air, rail, and marine. I can give you a concrete example right now. There have been a number of occurrences at the Toronto airport involving the potential risk of collision with aircraft.

Transport committee  As part of our investigations, we look at everything. If we're looking at a rail derailment, we're going to look at the condition of the track, the maintenance activities and procedures, the condition of the train, the activities of the crew, training of the crew and the procedures and rules they were following, and fatigue.

Transport committee  Not really, no. Airlines want to stay in business, but they also want to get their passengers safely to where they need to go. They make decisions every day about maintenance issues, and they do so in accordance with Transport Canada regulations and their own internal procedures.

Transport committee  No, because under the CTAISB Act as it exists today, there is a legislative barrier that prohibits sharing of access or use of that information by anybody but the Transportation Safety Board in the course of an accident, unless, as we said, there are certain principles under which a court can order release of a recording.

Transport committee  From the perspective of our mandate, we will listen to recordings after a reportable occurrence takes place in the conduct of a TSB investigation. The use of that data is a reactive approach. What we would like to see and what we're supportive of is the railway companies being able to access that information proactively in the context of a non-punitive SMS or to investigate those incidents that we don't investigate as long as the safeguards are there to ensure that the data remains privileged, not public, and isn't used for discipline against individual employees unless they've identified a threat to safety.

Transport committee  No, our mandate does not change. Our mandate will continue to be to investigate occurrences in the air, rail, marine, and pipeline modes of transportation under federal jurisdiction to identify causal and contributing factors. It will not change our mandate. What it will change, going forward and with the implementation of regulations, is that we will have to look at our processes internally in terms of how we do business and how we share information with the parties in accordance with the amendments to the Railway Safety Act.

Transport committee  There are hundreds of thousands of movements. If you talk about all modes of transport, it's millions, in terms of air, rail, and marine. We only investigate in a very small number of cases. We get roughly 3,500 occurrence reports per year. We do about 60 full investigations with a public report, although all the other occurrences are also documented.

Transport committee  First of all, we don't only investigate accidents. We also investigate incidents where there was a risk of an accident, which if left unattended could...so we do investigate incidents, even if there was no injury or damage per se. In terms of the railway industry, they've developed a lot of surveillance technology from the point of view of the conditions of the rail and the condition of the train.

Transport committee  Those types of events, where a signal is missed, where the movement exceeds what's called “the limits of authority”, are reportable occurrences under our act. We don't always investigate completely with a full report. It depends on the situation, but we have investigated many of those and that is what led us to recommend video recorders in addition to the audio recorders that we recommended several years previously, as well as some form of automated control to stop or slow a train if a signal isn't properly responded to.

Transport committee  First of all, the Transportation Safety Board's only mandate is to advance transportation safety. We conduct investigations following occurrences, accidents, and incidents. We don't have regulatory or enforcement powers. That is up to the specific regulator, in this case, Transport Canada.

Transport committee  If we look at the use by the railway companies, they can use it in two specific circumstances under Bill C-49. One is to investigate an incident or an accident that is not being investigated by the TSB. The other is that on a random-sampling basis, as part of their safety management system, they can do samples to look at how crews are operating the train.

Transport committee  Our mandate is to investigate, to find out what happened and why it happened, not to attribute blame or to assign criminal or civil responsibility. That leaves our interaction with people very free in terms of their being forthright in telling us what happened, because they know it can't be used against them for either enforcement purposes or civil or criminal liability.