The City of Winnipeg officially opened two point duty Winnipeg Transit inspector stations on Dec. 20.
Both stations are located downtown:
- one at eastbound Graham Avenue and Fort Street,
- the other on eastbound Portage Avenue at Vaughan Street, near The Bay.
The locations were strategically chosen by comparing incident data, according to Randy Tonellier Winnipeg Transit‘s Manager of Operations.
“We compared where we have incidents on buses with where we have the most transit services located,” Tonellier said.
He said a report was made by the Transit Department in May of 2017, that identified eight new safety initiatives, which included the inspector stations.
The stations cost about $30,000 to build and four new positions were created, Tonellier said.
Inspectors are not new to Winnipeg Transit — there are already inspectors onboard buses and at stops in high-traffic areas — however, the stations are new to the city.
“They are there to help passengers with information or to help bus operators with any incidents they might have,” said Tonellier.
Inspectors will be manning each station Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m.
Tonellier said there are bus-rider inspectors who will continue to monitor safety on weekends.
He said the city is open to the possibility of adding more inspection stations, once they are able to analyze the effectiveness of the two start-up locations.
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