Driver safety barriers coming soon for B.C. Transit buses
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:28:02 +0000
Within a few months, bus riders in Victoria can expect to be greeted by drivers working behind protective barriers, which are part of an effort by B.C. Transit to increase driver safety across the province.
B.C. Transit, which operates transit systems across the province outside of Metro Vancouver, began reviewing the option of full driver doors in 2017.
John Palmer, B.C. Transit’s director for safety and emergency management, said the company had made a number of changes, such as operator training, simplifying the fare structure, adding closed-circuit video to buses and improving radio systems. Although there was no increase in the number of driver assaults, there was also no decrease.
“We were really left with no other alternative than to look for an engineered solution to protect our drivers,” said Palmer.
Arow Global Corp. is designing and manufacturing the doors — which were developed in consultation with drivers, and have a fixed solid portion that prevents attacks from behind and a sliding glass partition — for 650 of the transit authority’s double-decker, 12-metre, and medium-duty eight- to 10-metre-long buses across the province.
Manufacturing has started and B.C. Transit is expecting delivery of the first doors in the next couple of weeks. They will be manufactured at a rate of about 30 per week.
B.C. Transit staff will begin installing the doors on buses in Victoria in February. They will be put in buses in 28 communities across the province in April, after a request for proposals for an installer, which was released last week, is closed and a proponent has been chosen.
The retrofitting project is expected to cost $6.5 million.
All new buses B.C. Transit is ordering will have the barriers installed in the factory. One new bus with a driver door is already in service in Whistler, and Palmer said at the end of this month or beginning of February they are expecting the first new buses with factory-installed doors to arrive in Victoria. More than 100 replacement buses will arrive over the next two years, and 350 buses will be added to the fleet over the next decade.
The goal is to have all B.C. Transit buses equipped with barriers by 2022.
A union representative said last fall that drivers have asked for protective doors for some time.
“We just hope that they’re in as soon as possible, just to make sure that there’s no other assaults that end up happening on operators,” said Ben Williams, president of Unifor Local 333, at the time.
B.C. Transit has a total fleet of almost 1,200 buses across the province, however that figure includes light-duty vehicles, such as handyDART shuttles, which will not receive protective doors.
TransLink, the transit authority that operates in Metro Vancouver, is also in the process of retrofitting its fleet with operator protection barriers, which have been found to reduce unprovoked attacks on drivers.
The barriers have been standard on orders for conventional, articulated and double-decker buses for more than two years. New buses with barriers began arriving in late April 2018.
As of Dec. 31, there were 520 Metro Vancouver buses outfitted with operator protection barriers. Buying and installing each barrier costs about $5,000. The plan is for TransLink’s entire bus fleet to have safety barriers by 2027.
— with a file from Victoria Times Colonist