How OC Transpo tightened driver recruitment after Westboro crash
New cognitive testing flags high-risk drivers, inquest into 2019 collision hears
In December 2019 — 11 months after the fatal Westboro bus crash — OC Transpo started using more steps to make sure "only the right candidates" went on to get driver training, an inquest into the crash has heard.
As a result, so many candidates were weeded out that it caught OC Transpo by surprise, an official with Ontario's Ministry of Transportation told the coroner's inquest into the Jan. 11, 2019, crash.
On that afternoon, a packed OC Transpo double-decker slammed into the Westboro Transitway bus shelter. Three people — Judy Booth, Bruce Thomlinson and Anja Van Beek — died in the crash. Many others were injured, triggering a flurry of lawsuits.
While the city accepted civil responsibility, the bus driver was charged with 38 counts of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm. She was acquitted of all of them in a judge-only trial in 2021.
The inquest, which began last week, is hearing what OC Transpo did in response to the tragedy.
From 296 candidates to 22
Late on Friday, Lisa Venier, who works at the ministry's carrier sanctions and investigations office, was questioned by Peter Napier, one of the lawyers leading the inquest on behalf of the public, about the OC Transpo recruitment process.
After the Westboro crash, OC Transpo added a cognitive screening tool to its pre-hiring process for potential trainees, Venier said.
"This was used, in their view, to mitigate risks and ensuring that only the right candidates would qualify and make it through the training program," Venier said.
In early 2019, OC Transpo had 296 applicants in its "pre-hire job assessment phase," and out of those, 156 were screened out.
Part of the "new" approach then involved doing another interview, "sort of a psychological testing as to the driver's ability," Venier explained. Another 57 candidates were screened out after that.
After some cognitive testing, another 13 were screened out, and then after some on-road testing, so were another 32.
After all tests, only 22 people of the original 296 were invited to take part in OC Transpo's New Bus Operator Training program.
"They were quite surprised at how many got screened out," Venier said of OC Transpo. "I would say looking at how many people they had hired maybe in 2019 compared to when they did this … it was successful."
Napier asked for clarification.
"The inference being that more inappropriate candidates were screened out following implementation of this program?" Napier said.
"Yes," Venier replied.
The inquest has not heard how subsequent rounds of recruitment have gone.
WATCH | Looking back on the crash and its lingering impacts:
Driver 'risk score'
On Monday, jurors heard more about the cognitive testing and on-road evaluation from the inquest's fourth witness: Shari Nurse, the City of Ottawa's chief fleet safety officer.
Nurse said the city bought a driver assessment application called Accelerate after the crash in 2019. It produces a "risk score" of either "high" or "low" for each recruit seeking to become a driver.
OC Transpo has been applying that program to all new recruits, Nurse said. It's also used for some existing OC Transpo drivers.
"If a driver is identified as high risk [and] may have been driving for a number of years, we'll put them through the Accelerate to identify if there's any anything we can do to help improve [their] safety rating," Nurse said.
The cognitive assessment is used internationally and tests, among other things, a driver's reaction time and level of risk taking, she said.
The on-road component involves driving a designated route with a certified trainer who notes "anything [the driver does] that is not safe or not defensive," Nurse said.
The inquest has heard about other steps taken by OC Transpo since the Westboro crash, including acquiring a simulator for training and accident recreation, plus the use of "telematics" that relay real-time information about a driver's behaviour.
Other inquest witnesses are expected to speak in more detail about those steps.
Managing risk with new drivers
Nurse was asked later if she had any recommendations. Inquest jurors are being asked to come up with suggestions for how to prevent calamities like the Westboro bus crash.
Nurse said there's an opportunity to look at routes and the types of buses used on each route: double-deckers, 40-foot single-deckers, or articulated 60-foot single-deckers. The latter bus type is involved in the highest number of collisions per kilometre in Ottawa, not double-deckers, the inquest has heard.
The purpose of the study, Nurse said, would be to "evolve to a point where we're not putting drivers into the highest-risk bus class on the highest risk-route because that's just a collision waiting to happen."
The rookie driver in the Westboro bus crash was involved in a previous collision while operating an articulated bus one month before the Westboro double-decker incident. Following the first collision, she was cleared to return to work after taking refresher training.
The inquest schedule, which can change, currently has the driver Aissatou Diallo slated to testify on Friday.
Last week the inquest heard Diallo had not yet responded to a summons to testify. If anything changes, there will be an update, Napier said.
John McLuckie, the lawyer representing the union for OC Transpo drivers, said there's been no evidence during the inquest so far about whether Diallo "experienced or made aware of any lack of familiarity or lack of comfort driving that [double-decker]."
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