The BISC Report by Power Trade Media

Bus Industry Safety Council BISC Report Safety is a juggling act Presented by:

Pacific Western Group of Companies

Table of Contents

About BISC

About Pacific Western

Introduction

Safety is not a Laugh-in matter… and that’s the truth! Are we ready for the Rise of the Robots? Ft. McMurray battles The Beast

There’s gold in them hills!

7 8

This is not working!

BISC meetings help you become an amazing juggler!

BUSRIDE | BISC

busride.com

About BISC

Meet BISC Welcome to the Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC), comprised of over 200 industry leaders who review and discuss issues and innovations in areas of bus and motorcoach safety, regulatory compliance, technology, maintenance and security, as well as the human factors. BISC provides advice, insights and feedback to its members, the industry, government agencies and all other parties interested parties in bus and motorcoach safety issues.

The BISC Mission BISC strives to continually raise the level of safety in the intercity bus and motorcoach industry through collaborative efforts of professionals in a workshop and educational environment. Five standing BISC committees perform the work of the Council, each one focusing on the key issues in a specific area of bus and motorcoach safety. Government Activities Review Committee reviews industry recommendations and best practices to help achieve regulatory compliance; and achieve industry consensus on regulatory safety issues. Human Performance Committee addresses all driver safety issues, including health, performance, recruitment and retention issues, and suggests best practices for bus company operators and their employees. This committee also evaluates currently available training materials and develops new training materials based on industry needs. Security Committee improves the security of the motorcoach industry through its reviews and Improvements to existing programs and its development of security-related industry outreach materials. This committee reviews preparedness, resiliency, mitigation, information sharing and response by the motorcoach industry to security threats. Vehicle Technical Operations Committee addresses all aspects of vehicle engineering and maintenance and serves as a liaison with manufacturers of motorcoaches, component systems and parts; and develops best practices reference materials and sources for maintenance. Workplace Health and Environmental Safety Committee identifies, alerts and advises members to emerging regulatory issues and industry best practices to improve safety compliance and performance. The committee also reviews safety practices and available products in the bus and motorcoach industry; develops training and educational programs. BISC meets twice annually, as well as through scheduled conference calls. There are no membership fees, nor is membership required to attend and participate in any of the BISC meetings. For meeting information, agendas, minutes, proceedings and details on the work of the BISC standing committees please visit the BISC Website at: http://www.buses.org/about/councils/BISC. busride.com | BUSRIDE

About Pacific Western

Meet Pacific Western Welcome to the Pacific Western Group of Companies, Calgary, AB, Canada, one of North America’s largest privately owned passenger transportation companies. Founded in 1957, we now operate over 3,500 buses and motorcoaches in over 50 locations throughout much of Canada and into the United States. Pacific Western operates four distinct lines of business. Our Oil Sands line moves thousands of workers to, around, and from oil, gas, mining, and construction projects each day; and we dispatch more trips than any of Canada’s major airlines. Our motorcoach line operates Alberta’s premier intercity service with a fleet of executive class Prevost motorcoaches. Our PW Toronto division is an internationally recognized charter operator who has looked after the Pan Am Games, G8 & G20 Summits, and are the “go to” transportation provider for NFL, CFL, MLB, NBA, and FIFA sports events. Additionally our motorcoach group operates a unique public-private partnership service to transport patients in smaller communities throughout British Columbia to the larger centers for medical specialist appointments and diagnostic testing. Our student transportation line safely delivers over 70,000 kids daily to and from schools in wide range of rural and urban communities across Canada. We also operate a paratransit door-to-door service for passengers with disabilities. Our transit line manages and operates a number of municipal transit systems, transporting over nine million passengers a year. We provided transit service for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games at Whistler, and the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George, British Columbia. The success of our company begins with our core values as demonstrated by our Safely Home logo

Safety drives the Pacific Western Group of Companies. It is our first core value, and is at the heart of all that we do.

Safely Home speaks to our deepest convictions to safety as the ultimate promise we make to each other, to our clients, and to the communities in which we operate.

BUSRIDE | BISC

busride.com

Introduction

Safety in the bus world is a juggling act Tending to safety issues in the world of buses and motorcoaches is a very ambitious and busy proposition for the member of the Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC).

By Stephen Evans Chairman, Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC)

As more buses and motorcoaches become equipped with a variety of sophisticated emerging technologies, it becomes even more imperative that operators stay informed and comply with an ever widening range of standards and regulations issued by the government agencies. The job of every operator entails: • monitoring, responding and following up on driver performance issues. • communicating with insurance providers about preparing for potential litigation, which requires due diligence before, and timely emergency response after an accident. • compiling, summarizing, and analyzing data to discover trends • conintually processing the necessary paperwork • And of course, as with everything in this business, doing it all and staying on time. Surprisingly, according to a recent industry census, 94 percent of all North American bus operators own fewer than 25 vehicles. This means in an industry of small businesses, most everyone on staff must wear many hats. For most by most in our industry, especially the smaller operators, it is no wonder staying on top of all this can turn into a juggling act — despite their best of intentions. This is why, as the current Chairman of the Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC), and on behalf of the Pacific Western Group of Companies, I am pleased to contribute these observations and useful real world safety tips and suggestions, which I hope will help keep you on top of safety in your world.

The

Report presented by The Pacific Western Group of Companies

Safety is not a Laugh-In matter — and that’s the truth! The “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award” handed out on the 1960s TV show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In lambasted celebrities and organizations that had done something questionable. Sorry, but I’m thinking the bus and motorcoach industry might qualify. Oh sure, we can rattle off all the right catch phrases — the importance of safety; how we put safety first and how passenger safety is our number one priority. But when it comes to walking the walk, it is apparent that many of us are not paying attention to the two simple steps we must take. 1. Provide pre-trip safety briefings to our passengers. 2. Train drivers to manage on road passenger transfers and emergency evacuations. These two procedures are not particularly complex or difficult. They don’t cost much, and large and small operators alike can carry them out. So why the inconsistency? Maybe we just don’t think anything will happen to us. Bad stuff only happens to those operators who skip steps, cut corner and put themselves at risk. Right? Besides, why bother going through the motions when our passengers never seem to care much and pay little attention during the briefing? By Stephen Evans Chairman, Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC)

The Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC) is an affiliate in the American Bus Association (ABA) group of councils created to elevate the level of safety in the intercity bus and motorcoach industry through the collaborative efforts of all professionals committed to the highest standards of action and conduct in all operations. Stephen Evans serves as vice president of safety, Pacific Western Group of Companies, Calgary, AB, Canada. As presenting sponsor of the BISC report, Pacific Western operates more than 3,000 buses in motorcoach, transit, and school bus operations throughout Canada, for which safety is first on the list of core values that define every action and decision in support of its 4,100 employees and customers, and ensures at the end of the day everyone always returns Safely Home.

BUSRIDE | BISC

The dangers are real and the consequences can be deadly. The fact is, the reason drivers think no one is listening and the briefings are not working is because people under stress quite often default to what has been repeatedly drilled into their consciousness. It may seem like they are not listening, but the message is seeping in — and will make all the difference in circumstances where they need this information. The reality is that despite the best of intentions of the best operators, every day throughout North America hundreds of buses and motorcoaches become disabled on the side of the road. Some only need to transfer passengers to another bus, while others may require an emergency evacuation. Nonetheless, in any situation passengers must have some idea for what to do, and someone to lead and manage the necessary procedures. Even those simple passenger transfers on the side of the road carry a huge potential for disaster from passing vehicles. The dangers are real; the consequences can turn deadly. The NTSB investigation into a tragic 2014 multi-fatality crash involving a tractor-trailer unit and a motorcoach found that many passengers in the smoke and heat of the post-crash fire became confused and panicked. I know firsthand how this feels. Years ago during my aviation safety training, I attended an FAA Cabin Safety workshop and can still vividly remember how disorienting, confusing and stressful it is trying to evacuate a cabin full of smoke. As chair of BISC, I threw down the gauntlet in January during ABA Marketplace and challenged the more than 200 ABA, BISC and IMG representatives to set a worthier example for the industry. My challenge to them was to go back to their organizations and ensure: 1. Operators conduct comprehensive pre-trip passenger safety briefings more effectively with greater consistency. 2. Drivers know how to manage transfers and evacuations by protecting the scene, directing passengers and ensuring they gather together in a safe area. I will follow up at our BISC summer meeting in June by asking for their reports. My guess is that many will find that although they have policies and procedures in place, operators are not carrying them consistently in the real world. Let’s face it, safety issues are often complex, confusing, technical, and occasionally even a little mystical. But, these two simple steps are not. Carrying them out will save lives. Helpful resources such as pamphlets, seat-back cards, audio messages and DVD videos are available from either the FMCSA or ABA/BISC websites. “And that’s the truth!” — to quote Lily Tomlin’s Laugh-In character Edith Ann. busride.com

The

Report presented by The Pacific Western Group of Companies

Are we ready for the Rise of the Robots? When I was a kid, emerging technologies were just the stuff of Sci-Fi movies. Robby the Robot ruled Forbidden Planet and later on the TV series Lost in Space. Such futuristic thinking back then, is merely the normal of today. The World Economic Forum suggested the recent barrage of emerging technologies is ushering in The Fourth Industrial Revolution — what could be called The Rise of the Robots! We’ve come a long way since my days spent watching classic movies. Now my smartphone can seemingly do almost anything except Star Trek-level teleportation. Consider this: the shear amount of raw data created from the dawn of civilization up to 2003 is now being generated every two days. Yikes! So what has changed since Robby ruled? Advances in three general areas have made all this possible: Sensors

driver assistance systems; and only rarely jump in to respond to special situations. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Face it, the bus industry is not science fiction. It is where the rubber meets the road. Our business is done face to face, and we keep the wheels turning by talking to people; not so much by e-mails, texts, or Facebook. For an industry so steeped in family values and personal relationships, embracing a new way of interacting electronically with one another is going to be a struggle, and for many, it will probably only get worse. That said, according to Pierre Nanterme, CEO of Accenture, one of the world’s largest management consulting firms, digital technology (or the lack thereof) is the primary

Perhaps we need to heed Robby the Robot’s iconic warning: Danger, Will Robinson! & Actuators; Connectivity; and Cloud Computing — world game changers to be sure, that have led us step by step into the Internet of Things (IoT). This network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to sense, collect, communicate, transfer and interact inside themselves or with an external environment now includes things like light bulbs, appliances, thermostats, and of course our vehicles. What does all this mean for the bus and coach industry? Clearly, today’s available technology is allowing us to finally address the outstanding public agenda issues surrounding traffic congestion, pollution and accidents. Big Data streaming from an ever-widening array of sensors is being used for predictive analysis, as well as achieving safer, more efficient fleet management. Meanwhile, testing on platooning trucks and autonomous driverless cars is moving forward, and will forever change how people view transportation — and will turn the role of buses completely upside down. The bus industry will soon have to realize passenger transportation will be more on-demand, have less to do with schedules and will use mobile applications that gather data and then shop to meet passengers’ needs. This technology will drive the choice of services and how they are purchased. The motorcoach and bus drivers of the future will probably no longer “operate” their vehicle, rather, they will monitor and manage a variety of advanced autonomous

reason why slightly over half of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared since the year 2000. Danger! is for sure if bus and coach operators fail to keep pace and make use of emerging technologies, and at the very least, stay on top of the four elements of the acronym SMAC - Social Media, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. Companies that, for whatever reason, do not adapt and embrace this new way of doing business will be left behind, and far faster than they might think. Can we find a way to preserve the past and embrace the future? Is there a balance out there that will allow us relationships with people while we work with robots? I hope so.

busride.com | BUSRIDE

The

Report presented by The Pacific Western Group of Companies

FT. MCMURRAY BATTLES

THE BEAST

Initially, my topic this month was the growing concern for how cruise control lulls drivers into a “zombie” state of mind. As I sat down to write, a much more eminent danger changed my mind.

A run-of-the-mill brush fire in northern Alberta had suddenly grown out of control, as high winds whipped the flames into a massive conflagration, catching everyone by surprise. With an almost endless supply of dry fuel on the forest floor, a parched treetop canopy and record-breaking 90-plus degree temperatures, swirling, gusting winds transformed the flames into a monster dubbed “The Beast” that surrounded the city of Ft. McMurray in a dirty, nasty ocean of fire. Our company has over 600 employees in the Ft. McMurray area, who operate hundreds of coaches and buses from several large facilities both in and out of town. So this story is very much our story…and it is personal. Not only did the fire grow tenfold in one day — far more quickly than anticipated — its path was impossible to predict as it danced in lockstep with the ever-changing winds. The Beast grew so large it began creating its own weather system. Experienced firefighters said they had never seen anything like The Beast as it rewrote the book on the way a wild fire moves and behaves. One astonished resident said that it took only 36 minutes for distant smoke on the horizon to become a galloping fire on his doorstep. Then all hell broke loose – the scorching heat devoured several communities. As the flames stormed in, Alberta declared a state of emergency and issued mandatory evacuation orders. The race was on for the entire city of 88,000 to get out of town. Like a hellish, apocalyptic scene out of the movies, with only minutes to escape in the ensuing chaos, confusion, panic and fear, some went north, some went south, and many were turned back at roadblocks as the inferno showered live embers and glowing ash. Meanwhile, 2,277 brave fire fighters were on the ground, supported by 208 helicopters, 412 pieces of heavy-duty equipment and 29 air tankers, while several hundred police assisted in the evacuation and protected the rapidly emptying city. News agencies from around the world sent reporters to cover this disaster. Support poured in from celebrities such as Kelly Ripa and Shaquille O’Neal. Even the Queen of England offered us her well wishes. By the time the fire moved on, it had razed more than 2,000 homes and buildings. Two lives were tragically lost in a traffic accident, but miraculously there were no other reports of deaths or serious injuries. 8

BUSRIDE | BISC

The wildfire dubbed “the Beast” recently wreaked havoc on northern Alberta.

Evacuees told harrowing stories of narrow escapes in their rush to safety, best summarized by one man’s social media post: “We are not fine. We are in danger. We were unprepared when told we had to leave. We had no idea what to pack. We escaped, but only by seconds. If we had been better prepared, we wouldn’t have been caught so off guard. We were lucky.” As most of you reading this are nowhere near Ft. McMurray, I’m guessing many might be asking, “What’s in this for me?” The reality is that no matter where anyone lives, fires, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes have become common occurrences. In fact, as I write this, major flooding is occurring in Houston and tornadoes are cropping up in Oklahoma and Kansas. Unfortunately, most people (even safety staff) still do not know the drill in extreme emergencies, which is why so many barely made it out from this disaster. It will take many months, if not years, to recover from the unprecedented losses our community has suffered. My message is an important reminder to those in other parts of the country who likewise may have to leave their homes in a hurry. Please don’t waste our lessons learned from fighting The Beast. They apply to all. Know the risks. Make a plan. Get a kit. Start with these great resources and tips at www.ready.gov and www.getprepared.gc.ca. busride.com

The

Report presented by The Pacific Western Group of Companies

There’s gold in them hills! BISC West attendees can pan for the big payoff.

In July, I was in Ontario, CA, for the Bus Industry Safety Council’s first-ever BISC West meeting and up in Whitehorse, YT, for a Pacific Western corporate meeting. Both places left me thinking and dreaming about gold. With a free afternoon in the Los Angeles area, I took in Knott’s Berry Farm, the famed theme park devoted to yesteryear and the Old West. Waiting in line for the GhostRider roller-coaster, I watched pint-sized prospectors pan for gold, and had a hoot watching a few lucky kids think they’d hit it rich when they found a flake or two of real gold in their pans. In the same vein, Whitehorse is all about the Klondike Gold Rush. It was an important hub for supplies and transportation during the stampede of gold-crazy prospectors heading to Dawson. Finding gold is more work than luck. Mixed in with gravel, sand and other mineral deposits, whether panning, sluicing or dredging, you have to dig up a bunch of dirt and wash away all the unwanted material called overburden to eventually reveal the heavier gold nuggets, flakes and flour that remain. Likewise, our 45 attendees learned to pan for gold when they convened at the BISC West meeting to discover what BISC is, what it does and how it operates. Following the opening orientation, we put on several “Best of BISC” sessions as examples of the materials and resources available to BISC members. In my session, I talked about the most common safety question I hear from the bus and motorcoach industry: Why am I having accidents, and how can I stop them? Well, come to find out, the answer is a lot like panning for gold. It is not easy, takes patience, and you have to sift through all the overburden. Using a strategic approach to find and fix, every operator can hit the jackpot and develop an effective safety program.

when we are able capture, assemble, sort, categorize and summarize our results. We discard the info we can’t use and categorize our findings accidents by type, location, the number per driver, driver experience, and so on. For example, earlier this year I visited a company in which drivers with three or more collisions were responsible for 81 percent of its reported accidents. The gold nugget in this problem area was obviously a lack of effective follow-up and training. Fix the problem — redeem the gold Once you’ve discovered gold, make these nuggets of information your center of attention. Remember, you can’t fix the whole world. Be very specific and do only what will fix the immediate problem. Only when you focus on the “must-dos” can you extract the full value of the nuggets lying in the bottom of your pan. Leave all your dreaming of fabulous riches for another day. The tendency of many companies more often is to water down their safety efforts with a generic hit-and-miss approach that tries to address everything they uncover, instead of finding and fixing just one or two of their main problems. Typically, the difficulty in pinpointing the problem is not due to lack of effort, but the lack of a more accurately-focused effort. Take close-quarter maneuvering training as an example. Instead of testing the driver on a course using generic cones, try recreating the vehicle yards and parking lots where the accidents actually took place. The processes for safety excellence are as exacting as panning for gold. Discover the real underlying problem, recognizing what is gold and what is not. Focus your safety procedures on extracting the full value in each of your gold nuggets and nothing more. This, fellow prospectors, is the Mother Lode where we strike it rich. There’s gold in them hills!

Pan for the problem — find the gold In our business, panning for gold means examining and analyzing our previous accidents and incidents. Our gold nugget shows up busride.com | BUSRIDE

The

Report presented by The Pacific Western Group of Companies

This is not working! For decades, the standard approach of the bus and motorcoach industry with regard to a whole range of close-quarter maneuvering accidents has simply been to declare them preventable and then follow up with the driver through disciplinary measures and remedial training. Although we go through the motions, the truth is that drivers are still knocking off mirrors, hitting signs, backing into fences, clipping canopies and scraping against posts. People, here is a newsflash: What we are doing is not working! Maybe it is time we try to figure out why and do something different. I have never figured out how it makes sense for management to punish a driver over an accident. If the driver is continually late for work, bullying fellow employees, or stealing from the company, then by all means send a warning, a suspension, or eventually make that person walk the plank. However, I don’t think misjudging clearances is at all the same. For example, clipping the mirror of a parked car while trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle on a narrow street is a skill problem, not a matter for discipline. There are those who seem to think they can forcibly prevent people from making human errors; that somehow through the disciplinary process employees will finally come to an ah-ha moment and say, “Now I get it,” and immediately stop making mistakes. I don’t think so. No one wants an accident. No one goes to work expecting to get hurt or to cause harm to others. Accidents are unexpected and unintended with unwanted consequences, and we certainly don’t expect accidents will ever happen to us. Threatening drivers that they’ll be in big trouble if they have an accident is not terribly motivating — in fact, it is downright goofy. We spend far too much time on blame and shame. The collision review process many of us follow is mostly about deciding if the driver was “at fault” and that incident was “chargeable.” But we already know someone made a mistake. Instead, our internal reviews and investigations should focus more on prevention. Of course, in major accidents we expect law enforcement, insurance adjustors and litigators will investigate and determine liability; and do it with an eye to making certain that someone pays or is punished. However, the piece of the accident puzzle that for the most part goes missing from their investigations, and the piece that our safety staff need to be focused on, is the why? Knowing and understanding why mistakes were made will begin to help us prevent the same mistakes from happening again. Our internal investigations need to dig deeper and look beyond the driver. Truth be known, as a safety guy I don’t really care as much about who or what caused an accident. I mainly want to learn why it happened, why mistakes were made. Only then can I work on ways to minimize those errors from reoccurring. While drivers can sometimes be a frustrating bunch for a company to watch over, when an accident does happen, for managers to get mad, get even and get justice is a no-win for everyone and will never fix the situation — especially at a time when finding and keeping drivers is such a huge challenge. Get over it and move on. The way to get a driver to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, is not by falling back on the same tired disciplinary 10

BUSRIDE | BISC

Motorcoach operators need to stop using the same tired disciplinary process to correct skill-based issues.

process. Instead, it is about providing effective training that strengthens knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies; and it is about us engaging with our employees. Still, far too many bus and motorcoach drivers out there would say of their company, “The only time they have talked to me about safety is when I have done something wrong.” busride.com

The

Report presented by The Pacific Western Group of Companies

BISC meetings help you become an amazing juggler! As my time as chair of the Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC) winds down, I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute the BISC Report. Some incredible individuals make up the bus and motorcoach industry, many who I’ve been proud to meet and hopefully serve in some small way.

By Stephen Evans Chairman, Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC)

Special thanks go out to the BISC Executive Committee for their support; Mike Colborne, CEO of Pacific Western Group of Companies, as the presenting sponsor of this column; and to David Hubbard, associate publisher for BUSRide, for his help in putting it all together. Looking after safety in the bus world can be a very busy proposition. We have to stay informed; ensure we comply; monitor and follow up with drivers; process never-ending piles of paperwork; embrace emerging technologies; and perform accident and incident investigations — and that’s just for starters. Many of us also, on occasion, fill in for dispatch or take on driving assignments. With 94 percent of all operators running fewer than 25 buses and coaches, we are an industry of small businesses where each staff member wears many hats. Staying on top of all this safety stuff requires us to become great jugglers, keeping all the balls in the air and smoothly balancing our time and resources among a variety of duties and competing projects. Yikes! One project that often does not make it into our juggling act is developing a crisis management plan. Instead, we hang onto the hope that nothing will happen to us, and never give time to figuring what we must do in the event of a major crisis. But I guarantee: At some point, all of us in the bus business are going to experience a major accident with serious injuries or fatalities — even if it is not our fault. When that happens, we will wish we had worked up a game plan. Winging it when the news media comes calling or when the event goes viral on social media just doesn’t cut it. Those who have been through this tell us their experience was a confusing, intimidating and stressful three-ring circus. They tried to juggle questions about what, why, and how the accident happened. The pressure was on from the media to supply detailed answers immediately. But in the end it was all about blame and shame. Besides coordination with the authorities and insurance adjusters at the scene, a crisis plan will need to include steps such as retrieving luggage and personal effects; making travel arrangements for unaffected passengers, and determining what to do with the bus when it is released. Back at the office, staff will be inundated gathering company, driver, vehicle, and maintenance records; fielding calls from passenger family members; preparing for the onslaught of media inquiries; as well as monitoring and responding to social media comments. Especially do not overlook informing your staff about what has happened. They need to be in the know and they need to hear it first from their company leaders — and not from a friend or neighbor who saw something on the news. Nailing down your company’s crisis plan in advance will include developing your process, your procedures, your training and your people assigned to carry it out. If you feel slightly bewildered and overwhelmed by all this, join the club. Better yet, join BISC. We invite all operators, especially the smaller ones to join us and help in our continuing mission to raise the level of safety in the intercity bus and motorcoach industry through our collaborative efforts with government officials and industry professionals in a workshop and educational environment. I hope to see you there at our next BISC meeting during ABA Marketplace in Cleveland, OH, January 14-17, where we’ll help you become an amazing juggler. busride.com | BUSRIDE

www.busride.com

BUSRIDE | BISC

busride.com