Inquest interrogates OC Transpo booking system that leaves 'crumbs' for 'junior' drivers
Drivers like Aissatou Diallo at 'the bottom of the list' when choosing shifts
Four times a year, OC Transpo bus drivers go to a hall and plot out their lives for the coming season in discrete blocks of time.
Across several boards — one for weekdays, one for Saturday, one for Sunday, one for days off, one for vacation time and still another for statutory holidays — they select shifts, broken down into smaller "runs," spanning two-week intervals that repeat over the course of the quarter.
"You guys literally post it on paper in a room, don't you?" a lawyer for the union representing local bus drivers asked a City of Ottawa bookings manager at an ongoing coroner's inquest on Friday.
"That's correct," he replied.
The inquest is examining the OC Transpo double-decker crash that claimed the lives of three people in 2019, along with any systemic issues that might be fixed to prevent future calamities.
While a deep dive into the minutiae of driver booking might seem like an odd off-ramp, one of the inquest's key questions is how OC Transpo operators end up behind the wheel of which buses — and how that might relate to safety, given what we know about the driver involved in the fatal Westboro station crash.
Aissatou Diallo had been working for OC Transpo for six months before the crash and had 55 hours of experience driving double-deckers.
David Sarrouf, a program manager of Ottawa transit bookings and timekeeping, described drivers like Diallo as "junior" bus operators.
As Sarrouf went to on to explain on Friday, OC Tranpo's driver booking system — based for years on practices agreed upon by the union and the city — presents "challenges" for junior drivers.
Senior operators get first dibs during those garage booking sessions, he said, leaving juniors with the "crumbs."
"That hinders them [in] their quality of life," Sarrouf said. "I think that plays a factor in terms of mental state when they're in the [driver] seat and making decisions."
In addition, the booking system does not restrict drivers like Diallo — who was in a previous collision — from driving any type of bus once they've been retrained and cleared to return to work.
And as the inquest has heard, changing that system would not be easy due drivers' collective agreement with the city.
"There's a lot of rules," Sarrouf said.
8 hours rest time
According to Sarrouf, the work choices available for drivers to pick come pre-designed by the city, including the type of bus on each route.
Drivers book a run knowing what bus they're likely to drive, he said, although there are times when someone taking on a spare shift might end up driving a different type of bus. On other occasions, some buses simply aren't available due to fleet shortages.
In fact, Sarrouf agreed with John McLuckie, the lawyer for Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 279, which represents more than 2,300 OC Transpo employees, that a shortage of buses in Ottawa has now reached the "crisis" stage.
Drivers often work a mix of run types, as shown by Diallo's schedule leading up to Jan. 11, 2019, the day she collided with a passenger bus shelter at Westboro station just before Friday afternoon rush hour:
- Sunday, Jan. 6: Full day on an articulated bus.
- Monday, Jan. 7: Morning service on an articulated bus and evening service on a double-decker.
- Tuesday, Jan. 8: Day off.
- Wednesday, Jan. 9: Day off.
- Thursday, Jan. 10: Morning service on an articulated bus and evening service on a double-decker.
On the day of the crash, Diallo drove an articulated bus in the morning and picked up the double-decker for her afternoon shift at 2:42 p.m, according to a narrative of the day.
It's not clear when her shift the previous day ended or when her Jan. 11 morning shift began. But drivers must get at least eight hours of rest between shifts, Sarrouf said.
Still, with drivers' commutes and time spent at garages, sometimes "that's definitely less than eight hours of rest," Sarrouf said.
There's no way for operators to book longer rest times, he later told one of the five inquest jurors being asked to make recommendations to save future lives.
'Bottom of the list'
Diallo had selected her Jan. 11 shift as part of the winter booking session that typically happens the previous fall, according to Sarrouf.
"Do you know what other options might have been available to her?" McLuckie asked.
Sarrouf said he had no insight into Diallo's shift preferences or her state of mind in January 2019 but that, as a new driver, she would have been "at the bottom of the list" and "required to take whatever work that was available for her to select."
Diallo, who was acquitted of dangerous driving charges in the Westboro crash, is on the inquest witness list. But it's unclear if she will testify as she has not answered a summons.
Drivers don't all necessarily want the same routes, shifts or number of work hours, Sarrouf went on to explain.
Weekends off are so "popular," though, that it might take a driver 16 years to get to the point where they can book off Saturdays and Sundays consecutively, Sarrouf said.
Drivers do get at least one Sunday off in each two-week block.
"The most senior person takes what they like and what they can. And then it sort of crumbles down to the crumbs for the junior operator," he said.
Peter Napier, one of the lawyers leading the inquest, asked Sarrouf if he recommended any changes to the booking system in the name of improving public safety.
Sarrouf said he understood the concept of seniority and people putting in the years, but that the "cafeteria-style" booking used by OC Transpo can make it tough for newer drivers.
Tweaking the system might help with rest time and consecutive days off, he said, and might "spread the load for everyone to get some of that piece of pie.
"I think that all plays a [hand in] the employee well-being. It puts pressure on the family. So if home is not doing well, you're in the seat, you could be doing decisions [where] your mind is not there."
The inquest is happening as ATU Local 279 is looking to negotiate a new contract with the city, with improvements to work-life balance cited as one of workers' priorities and the union also pointing to the transit agency's "inability to retain staff."
The current collective agreement expired on March 31 but, according to the union, OC Transpo negotiators "have delayed initial bargaining sessions until the end of April."
That's around when the inquest, which has about two weeks of testimony left, is slated to end.
Balancing seniority and safety
After drivers make their bookings, their choices are loaded into a software program to check for any breaches of the seniority rules, Sarrouf said. (Since the COVID-19 pandemic, workers can skip visiting the hall in person and — after previewing their options online — phone their selections in, one union member told CBC.)
There is nothing built into the system to restrict a driver involved in a previous collision to a smaller bus type, he added.
While there are accommodations for drivers who have injuries, "bus type assignments and the restrictions are based on medical [issues], not on performance," Sarrouf said.
That includes for new drivers, he said, adding that recruits are trained on all bus types for a number of mandated hours.
Only one month before the Westboro crash, Diallo collided with a parked bus at St. Laurent station while driving an articulated 60-foot single-decker.
The cause was deemed to be operator error and a failure to adjust speed to road conditions. Diallo underwent retraining and was cleared to return to work about a week before the fatal collision.
Asked by Napier about a hypothetical scenario that exactly mirrored Diallo's situation, Sarrouf said a driver who underwent re-training would simply go back to the schedule they'd chosen during the last booking cycle.
Drivers who say they're uncomfortable driving a particular bus can get extra training, he said.
WATCH | Looking back on the crash and its lingering impacts:
Napier asked if OC Transpo is considering a new booking system.
"Unfortunately," Sarrouf replied, the collective agreement "limits us as to what we can do," though he later conceded under cross-examination by McLuckie that the city has agreed to that system for at least 15 years.
Coroner Dr. Louise McNaughton-Filion, who is overseeing the inquest, asked if there's a way to balance seniority and safety, particularly for junior bus drivers.
"The only way would be to reserve certain work .... for the junior [driver], and that would sort of go against the collective agreement," Sarrouf said.
"This is not something that could be done easily," McNaughton-Filion suggested.
"Correct," he said.
The inquest continues on Monday.
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