Some city buses may look a bit different later this month thanks to a pilot project aimed at improving driver safety.
The London Transit Commission (LTC) will be conducting a roughly year-long operator safety barrier pilot starting Monday, Aug. 13.
An increased trend of violence in the workplace in 2017 led the LTC to ask their health and safety committee to look at the possibility, said Kelly Paleczny, LTC general manager said.
“There are a number of other transit agencies across Canada that are doing something similar,” said Paleczny. “The health and safety committee did recommend it and we decided to proceed,” she said.
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“Beginning Monday there will be three buses in service that have the new barriers installed.”
Paleczny said they don’t yet know where the buses with barriers will be or when they will hit the routes.
“It’s not a scheduled thing. They’ll go out as part of our regular services, but they will be shuffled throughout the system,” she said.
“That gives us the opportunity to hopefully give most of our drivers a chance to drive the bus,” said Paleczny.
Paleczny hopes with the buses being rotated through the routes, the LTC will be able to get feedback from both operators and users.
If they decide to move forward with introducing the barriers on all buses, it would cost roughly $1 million or $5,000 per bus.
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