THUNDER BAY — With 275 incidents in in 2022, 146 in 2023 and 128 in 2024, the number of reported security incidents on city transit has been on a downward trend over the past three years – aside from assaults on bus drivers.
That's according to the transit operator safety update presented to city council Monday.
There were 16 assaults against transit drivers last year, up from nine day assaults reported in 2023 and matching the 2022 number.
Assaults are a broad category that can range from physical contact to spitting, explained Brad Loroff, manager of Thunder Bay Transit.
Incident reports are placed into seven categories: acts of aggression, assault, bodily fluid, fare dispute, harassment, intoxication/unresponsive, and verbal altercation.
De-escalation training that was implemented last year could be the reason for the decrease in incident reports said, Matthew Furioso, supervisor of operations for Thunder Bay Transit
“This training empowers operators by building confidence in handling difficult passenger interactions and enhancing communication skills to effectively de-escalate conflicts or potentially avoid them altogether. This appears to have contributed to a reduction in things like fare disputes and, therefore, will remain a key focus in ongoing training initiatives going forward,” Loroff stated.
Furioso added that operators will be re-certifying their de-escalating training starting Tuesday.
Coun. Greg Johnsen asked why drivers have to re-certify the de-escalating training after one year.
Furioso said the company contracted to provide the de-escalating training does a refresher course to ensure the driver is “upholding the standard of their training.”
The company also provide updated techniques.
Johnsen also asked whether the de-escalating training is helping with retaining drivers.
Furioso said he doesn’t have “concrete statistics” on driver retention. He said the transit department has seen an increase in drivers continuing their employment over the past few years.
“Over the last year, we made major strides in hiring, and we've seen a lot of those operators stay. I think we've only had one leave out of the 20-something-odd people we hired,” said Furioso.
Coun. Michael Zussino asked whether the transit department had a process for banning repeat offenders from getting on the bus.
“There are enforcement measures in place now to respond to different types of negative passenger behaviours. We do ban passengers. We will rely on trespass notices and things like that,” said Loroff.
Bus drivers are given information on who is banned from riding the bus, but it’s up to the Thunder Bay police to enforce a trespass order.
Loroff noted that the city does not have a transit banning bylaw to guide the transit department on bannable offences.
“A bylaw is only good if it's enforceable. We need to take some time and just be thoughtful about if we're going to go above and beyond what we already have in place with respect to banning passengers. The use of trespass notices and whatnot, or if we're going to go to the extent of something like a passenger code of conduct by law with fines attached and other negative penalties for passengers, when there are repeat offences,” said Loroff.
Now that the new digital fare boxes are installed in the fleet, the transit department can focus on implementing new safety measures for their drivers. They will be replacing the temporary bio-shields that were installed during the pandemic with new permanent crush and attack resistant unbreakable glass safety shields.
Coun. Dominic Pasqualino asked why safety shields were delayed after the pandemic ended.
“We really had to wait until the new fare boxes had arrived and were installed across the entire transit fleet so that the newly engineered safety shields could be designed so that they fit tightly and properly and accurately around the new fare boxes. The new fare boxes are now installed. They're in place, which was the reason for the delay in moving ahead with the engineered safety shields,” said Loroff.
