At the TTC Board meeting of January 21, there was a presentation based on the report Safe Service Action Plan that included several actions and proposals that are intended to improve the safety of TTC operations. The context for this report is that there have been a number of high profile incidents involving TTC vehicles in the recent past.
During 2014, two pedestrians died after being struck by streetcars. Then, in the latter half of 2014 several video recordings were made public of TTC bus operators running red lights. In response to these incidents, the CEO initiated a review of operator training, supervision and relicensing as well as a communications campaign to reinforce the need for operators to drive defensively and to adhere to the rules of the Highway Traffic Act.
Towards the end of 2014, an adult woman and a 14 year old girl died as a result of injuries in separate incidents after being struck by a TTC bus making a turn. Given the very serious nature of these tragic events, the CEO directed that the review already under way be expedited and that it include consultation with other operators for comparison and to seek out best practice. [pp 1-2]
Broadly speaking, the proposals can be grouped into three sets:
- Operator training and recertification, including an emphasis on safe driving.
- Monitoring systems to track and record road conditions with a view both to increase evidence when accidents occur, and potentially to monitor driver behaviour.
- System review including issues such as stop placement, identification of accident “hot spots” and causes, and improved investigative techniques.
Two things were quite notable in the presentation.
First off, there was almost no reference to consulting with drivers as part of the system review. They would be chatted to about the importance of safe operation, retrained regularly, and monitored, but the feeling was of a very top-down process. A member of the Commission, Anju Virmani, raised this issue, and CEO Andy Byford replied that management has a very good working relationship with the operating staff. This position was not shared by ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear who argues that driver behaviour is influence by heavy-handed service management. Byford claims that his message is that “safety takes priority over the schedule”, but from the union’s point of view, that’s not what actually happens.
A long-standing problem has been the suitability of scheduled running times for actual conditions on routes. The TTC has had the ability to monitor and analyze vehicle tracking data for years — I started doing this in 2007 and the system whose data I used was hardly new at the time. Some routes and time periods have lots of room in the schedule for their trips, others are not so good with the result that operators are pressed to make unrealistic schedules. With little headroom under normal conditions, any disruptions inevitably bring on short turns to keep the operators on time.
In the fall of 2014, running times were increased on some routes, but this was done more-or-less across the board during all operating periods. The result is that a route like King now has cars dawdling along the route and queuing up at terminals. The flip side, in theory, is that short turns are much less commonly needed for cars to stay on time, but the speed of service has declined. From a rider’s point of view, it is hard to say how this balances out, but giving vehicles far too much running time is simply a case of cooking the schedules to produce a desired result (fewer short turns) without considering the balance between reasonably speedy service and adequacy of terminal breaks for drivers.
The logical conclusion would be that the TTC should actively work on revising its schedules, a process that is now underway. However, in a bizarre response to the claim that operators drive too fast in order to stay on time, the TTC will experiment with covering up the dashboard display that tells a driver whether they are late or early, and by how much. That’s right. The very mechanism that the TTC might use to manage service and ensure reasonable vehicle spacing will be disabled. A trial of this will be conducted on the East Mall bus although, with its double-digit headways, I am not convinced that this is a representative route.
As if that were not strange enough, there was a reference in the presentation (not in the printed report) to a proposal that streetcars cross intersections no faster than 25km/h. This sounds sort of reasonable if it were to apply only at major intersections, especially with track junctions where there is already a go slow operating standard. But no. All intersections would be treated this way, even the most minor, and this would effectively mean that streetcars would never run faster than 25km/h.
What this shows quite clearly is that whoever dreamed up this idea has never been on a real streetcar route in his life. The average speeds may be in the low teens, but the top speed regularly gets above 40km/h especially away from downtown and in off-peak periods.
If such a proposal were made for bus routes (where the real problems with speeding and running red lights have been reported), it would be laughed out of the room. The Lawrence East bus, for example, routinely tops 50km/h.
There are times that the TTC’s attitude to “safety” is selective with the word being used as a motherhood shield to limit debate, or to strong-arm acceptance of badly thought-out schemes such as the interpretation of fire codes in the design and placement of second exits from subway stations.
Oddly enough, a long-standing issue on the streetcar system has been ignored for a few decades — the operation of electric track switches. When the ALRVs (two-section streetcars) were introduced, the old track switching system had to be replaced because it depended on all cars having a common distance from the front of the car to the point where the trolley pole touched the overhead power wire (the switches were actuated via a circuit on the trolley pole connecting with a contactor on the overhead).
The then-new system depended on in-pavement detection loops and radio antennae on the streetcars. This system did not work well when it was installed 30 years ago, and it has become less and less reliable ever since. All switches on the system, even those that are manually operated, are now treated as a stop-and-proceed situation rather than a slow, rolling approach, with the result that operations through intersections can be jerky and tedious. The south side of Roncesvalles Carhouse, westbound, is a particularly bad location.
There has been a project on the TTC’s books for some years to replace the existing system, but this has been deferred many times. Implementation of a replacement system may occur over 2015-16 assuming it is not pushed off again. Aside from the question of reliability and the fact that many nominally electrified switches are now “temporarily” out of service, this increases the number of locations where operators must alight from their cars, throw switches (in whatever weather and traffic conditions), make their turn, and walk back to reset the switch to ensure that the next car doesn’t come upon an open switch. On top of this, locations where the track switch electronics might interact with traffic signals to give a transit-only turn phase don’t work if the switch is manually operated. Diversions, a common enough event, are the very time when automated switching and transit priority would aid an already difficult situation, but these are often hampered by being fully manual operations.
Another source of delay is the lack of priority signalling at many locations where it once operated. The whole idea, many years ago, was to reduce running times, and in particular to avoid delays to streetcars (and later buses) caused by the fact that they move more slowly than regular traffic because they must stop for passengers. As the number of working intersections declines, running times go up.
I have no problem with the TTC pursuing a goal of safe operation. They should be a model for all other motorists, and should protect both their riders and their staff to the greatest degree possible. That said, the “safety” program can be compromised by
- appearing to selectively target staff monitoring rather than consultation,
- treating service reliability as a secondary issue to the point where it can be ignored, and
- failing to address underlying problems such as outmoded schedules and a traffic environment that works against the best possible transit operation.
It is no “improvement” to hobble service with unreasonably low speeds and by throwing schedules out of the window. They are both part of the service a transit system provides.
A safety mantra is not enough — it must be backed up by a culture that views blame and discipline as an exception for the very few “bad apples”, with collaborative improvement on and by all sides as the goal.
Appendix: What are typical operating speeds?
The charts (an Excel spreadsheet) linked below give details of average operating speeds on 504 King for one-week periods. Note that this chart has multiple tabs, one for each hour of operation.
They are created by the following process:
- Vehicle tracking data, including GPS location, are transmitted every 20 seconds.
- These locations are resolved to a scale on the route with one unit per 10 metres. This is a choice in my analysis, not a limitation of the data.
- The change in position for each “tick” of the clock is a measure of the vehicle speed for that interval.
- Values observed at each 10 metre increment are averaged within each hour to produce the data that populate the charts. (Some points will have no data, especially during periods of wide headways, because no vehicle reported being at that spot during the hour in question. A vehicle travelling at 40km/h will travel 222m in 20 seconds, or 22 units. It will, therefore, be “seen” at under 5% of the 10-metre segments it is covering based on a 20 second reporting interval.)
What is visible are the locations where operation is slow, particularly where this occurs over an extended distance due to congestion. It is quite easy to pick out the location of well-used stops because there is a notch showing a low average speed because most vehicles stop there. Stepping through the tabs gives a flip-chart animation of changing conditions throughout the day.
It is quite easy to see that 25km/h is too low a speed for the King car in many locations and time periods.
Steve Munro 
As I said to you at the meeting this is idiotic. How the 509 for example has so many new intersections that it would CRAWL from Union to Exhibition as you said. I say let them do it.. let them go as slow as they want in the name of “safety”. I can hear the masses gathering their lanterns and pitchforks as we speak 😉
I can see why they are experimenting with covering part of the TRUMP units.. if you go 25 KM an hour you will be awfully late and therefore need to speed up. I guess the thinking is if you cannot see how late you actually are then you will not need to compensate.
I was talking to my father and his friends who are all operators with 25 years or more on. As they said, even without the TRUMP units you can tell how early or late you are just by knowing how much run time you have and using landmarks as timing points i.e. its a 20 minute headway and its 10 minutes from point a to landmark b therefore if you take 30 minutes to get to landmark B you are 20 minutes late.
That example being what it is operators will still speed, they know where things are on a line and know how long it takes to get to those points. If they are running behind they will know it display or no display. The point is moot.
Steve: The wizards at the TTC seem to forget that operators have waybills with the scheduled time, and those old-fashioned pieces of technology called watches. This is a very sad example of a proposal that should have been strangled at birth and never allowed to come out at a Commission meeting, but it also shows that there are some within the TTC whose grip on reality is tenuous. Remember that this is the same organization that wanted to block the Nextbus map feeds as a “security” issue so that would-be bad guys would not be able to find buses in isolated areas. The idea that people might simply look at a timetable, or wait for a bus to show up (just like a rider), completely escaped them. Of course the real reason they wanted to block Nextbus was that it showed the world just how crappy their service actually was.
Quite bluntly I am fed up with the fact that this sort of “analysis” passes for management within the TTC.
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As luck would have it, there was a derailment on Dundas a few nights ago near Dundas Square. It was in the TTC service alert feed. One can’t help but wonder if it was a faulty switch at play.
Steve: There is no electric switch at Dundas Square. This is a serious issue, but it is important not to assume a link based on superficial data.
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Used to be that there were much, much less signalized intersections. When a streetcar stopped at an intersections, the cars in the OTHER direction had opportunities to make their left turns, crossing the path going to the right of the stopped streetcar. Then the streetcar would go.
It’s the signalized intersections, allegedly with transit priority, that are the problem. If the streetcar has a red light to get passenger on or off, the cars going in the opposite direction have to wait at their red at the same time.
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It clearly makes no sense to allow for the same running time on any route at 6am as at 6pm but I assume that in the days before the age of computers (which the TTC only seems to have recently entered) it would have been too time-consuming for human schedulers to have varying ‘run times’ for a route. (In fact, the (standard) run times are printed on the transfers and I assume the operators’ waybills use these throughout the day.) Part of the TTC’s problems are obviously due to old/broken or obsolete equipment but a fair bit can certainly be blamed on outdated management practices and a failure to analyse what is actually happening ‘on the street’ and using modern technology/communications to provide a properly spaced service 24/7 that actually arrives when it is scheduled and goes to its announced destination.
Steve: Running times do vary through the day for major periods such as the peaks, midday, evening, etc. However, a comparison of actual times needed “before” the new schedules (i.e. before the schedules themself became part of the problem) with the new scheduled times shows that there are periods when the padding is excessive.
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The initial quote states that
I can count 3 killed by the St. Clair streetcar alone in the months August/September alone. A 68 year old man was hit on August 7 (and died the following week). A 79 year old man was hit and killed September 18th, and a 73 year old woman was hit and killed September 30.
If it was a direct quote from a TTC document, it is embarrassing that they do not even keep accurate statistics on TTC collisions causing death.
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[This comment was submitted in another thread on January 16.]
I was reading this month’s reports from the TTC and this caught my eye in the safety report – Eliminate The Deviation Display On The TRUMP Units – from the sounds of this they will be removing the display that tells drivers if they are ahead or behind schedule. I understand how this could improve safety, but I have no idea how it makes any sense … schedules are actually a fundamental part of a bus driver’s job … it’d be like suggesting they remove the doors from the subway, or the electricity from the streetcars … sure it would make things safer, but it kinda defeats the purpose of running a transit system.
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How is the new track-switching system supposed to work? Same principles, different technology?
Steve: The “new” (i.e. current) system operates via a pair of antennae at the front and rear of each car, and a receiver loops in the pavement. When a car approaches a switch, it sends a signal indicating which way the switch should be set, and this also locks the switch from being changed by another signal (the reason will become obvious soon). At the rear of the car, the second antenna transmits an “unlock” signal. In cases where cars are running in trains (typically pushing a disabled car), only the antennae at the front of the first car and the back of the last car are active. This makes the train appear as one unit.
In cases where the unlock signal is not detected properly, a switch can appear to not be working when in fact it is just staying locked as designed.
Other loops in the pavement are used to detect that a car has progressed far enough into the intersection that any transit priority that may be active can be released. This is separate from the operation of the switching circuits. In some cases, this detection does not work, and the transit priority remains active even though there is no car actually present requiring it. Eventually a timer overrides the priority function and the signals cycle normally.
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To answer the question that headlines this post, I think a lot of the “safety” initiatives demonstrate inept management by people who evidently have never used the TTC to actually get somewhere in a predictable and reasonably quick way.
In the software development world, there are meetings to hash out what needs to be done, and then after it’s done, QA people test the functionality against some real-world scenarios. (Not to say that software development succeeds even with all this, just that the results are at least less dire than without these discussions and sanity checks.)
It’s clear to me that the “customer service” so dearly beloved by Andy Byford includes getting me safely from point A to point B in the least time possible. I’ve been on streetcars and buses which are lollygagging along at bicycling speed on empty streets, because they will otherwise run ahead of schedule. Clearly, schedule speeds should be dynamically adjusted, and the line managed on headway and not scheduled runs. Simply slowing everything down so a trip takes 50% longer because the bus or streetcar never exceeds a jogging pace is not customer service, it’s bloody dumb.
Some of these “safety” initiatives are just as sensible as the “Streetcars 7 km/h through intersection” signs that sprouted along The Queensway a few years ago. These signs were placed irrespecctive whether there was a left-turn lane which could potentially interfere with streetcars or not, and it really slowed down travel by Colborne Lodge Drive, where stops for passengers are very rare. Fortunately, the signs are gone for some time. May the current proposals be deep-sixed before they are even implemented.
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With regards to Dundas Square, the switch being referred to is an SEL switch WB east of Victoria that goes east to south (under the building). The broken rail was just west of the full S curve, having nothing to do with the switch.
A huge problem with “new” SEL switches is that the AC portion of the interrogator on the pole must be first inspected and hooked up by Toronto Hydro. The TTC is very low on their priority list; this results in slowing down service as now manual switches have to be reset, including dual mainline. Hydro has to step up their priority.
The excessive time of King will most likely get scaled back, but ops have less stress about running time and “stretch” time with this set up. This has easily been proven when a route has been put on headways; increasing the scheduled headway creates more running time for the same number of vehicles and corrects the lack of scheduled running time. The problem that can occur is that ops rush through to gain more end time. It’s kind of a double edged sword since there aren’t enough supervisors to micromanage and trust is primary.
Steve: I will have to check, but I thought that the switch WB at Dundas Square has been out of service for years due to the long absence of overhead to go under the building. In any event, as you say, the derailment was elsewhere.
For the info of other readers, this intersection is scheduled to be replaced in the next few years.
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Steve, you hit the nail on the head! More running time, on major routes, which I fought for for years. Supervisors asking why are you late puts pressure on operators to speed. I advocated for years for them to slow down and don’t speed. Schedules are not an operator’s problem. When Byford and friends hire people who can drive instead of smile, that may help too.
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Steve,
Now that Andy Byford has been CEO for over 2 years, do you not think that he’s had enough time to implement proper protocol and policies to ensure that safety is a priority when analyzing and implementing route schedules?
With all the mobile apps out there that rely on route schedules, buses and streetcars that are shown as late upset customers and that frustration is taken out on the operators, not TTC management or politicians.
I’m going to say this now, but I believe Andy Byford will say anything to save his job including lying to the public. He saw what happened to Gary Webster and doesn’t want that to happen to himself. Why is he afraid of the truth?
To constantly put the blame solely on unionized operators instead of reviewing and blaming the whole scheduling process can only fail because the true input should be from those operators whom drive those routes daily.
Why has Andy Byford lied to politicians and the general public? How can the 73 Royal York bus be scheduled to arrive at a subway station at 7:35pm, let all passengers off the bus, then load all passengers on the bus, and be scheduled to leave the subway station at 7:35pm??? Is that safe??? I have photo’s of a 73 Royal York waybill to back up my claim.
Also, if safety is a priority, why is CIS still telling operators via the trump to maintain schedule? Didn’t TTC COO Gary Shortt just after Christmas say that schedules are not put above safety? If that is true, why are operators still receiving messages via the trump to maintain schedules???
The ATU Local 113 president has claimed that operators are being disciplined for not maintaining schedules. If that is true, how can safety be a priority???
All this is happening on Andy Byford’s watch and it’s time for a spade to be called a spade. At Andy Byford’s TTC, safety is NOT a priority!
Steve: I think that Byford is told things by his management that he should have the good sense to see through, but doesn’t for whatever reason — either he doesn’t know any better, or he is preoccupied with other matters. There is definitely a gap between Operations’ view of the world and what Byford thinks is happening.
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Steve, as an update the WB switch Dundas to Victoria and NB switch Victoria to Dundas was unplugged about a year and a half ago when the new trolley wire was strung. There was a temporary time when Victoria wasn’t available at all due to the sinkhole. The off street turn is rarely used for those turns, except for diversions or short turns. Great safe location to fix plugged sanders on an ALRV though.
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Thanks for trying to cover this bizarre situation objectively, Steve.
Repetitve strain may result from throwing one’s hands in the air so many times.
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Hey Steve,
Great article and data – love looking at the charts. I wish I could get OpenOffice to label all of your tagged intersections, but hovering with the mouse works well enough. I have to say I’m a little shocked at how much bigger the slowdowns are at University/Spadina relative to Yonge/Bay.
I wonder how many operational issues like these could be fixed by some simple policy changes (headway instead of schedule based operation) and upgrades to modern equipment (which is sort of coming…sort of).
I think the driving crew are actually pretty good, occasionally you come across a bad one but they all seem pretty pleasant (I like to be at the front for the view, stand to keep the pretty blue seats open, and talk to drivers to pass the time…particularly thoughts on new vs. old streetcars, as many seem to prefer the old. Fear of change? But I digress…). It’s sort of a difficult situation because to be safe you can’t go fast but to be on time you have to. See above/Steve’s endless comments on schedule vs. headway based operation…
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Darn, you can’t reply or quote?
Steve: ?????
@RichardWhite, I suspect the 509 doesn’t clear 25km/h between Bathurst and Bay as is, with all those damn lights! Sigh…
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So how exactly will the future switching system be any more reliable/different than the current antennae-loop system?
Steve: I don’t know because the details are not out yet. Let’s just say that this seems to be a uniquely Toronto problem
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The TTC management should create a list of the particular aspects of their service they can actually manage. They should also create a specific list of the aspects that they cannot, and those which regularly fall within understood bounds. If drivers are experiencing a lot of runs beyond the second standard deviation for actual run time, it is time to adjust the recovery time at that time of day on that run. The environment within which the TTC operates, is one where you would reasonably expect constant run time adjustments especially at peak to deal with the realities of traffic. Failure to highlight the routes with the greatest increases in run time or most consistent increases, is doing all a disservice.
They cannot control the run time down King Street, but they know it will be very slow at peak, and they should have a pretty good idea of the normal outer bounds of delay (2 std deviations), and be able actually know the required level of equipment etc. When they know they cannot run the required level of service be blunt about it.
Management absolutely can control the dispatch headway, they should have a very good idea of the number of vehicles in service, and the number required at any given time to maintain service. Publish historic run time information (the last year) and the number of vehicles required, vs available. Publish dispatch headway vs target headway, and how many vehicles leave more than a minute or 2 early or late. Track why the vehicle left late (not returned because of previous route run).
They need to come forward and be straightforward, to run better service in terms of run times we need the following to be changed in the operating environment, to run more reliable service we need x additional vehicles and drivers. They need to be clear when it is a pure management problem and own up to it (vehicle leaves early), and where it is beyond reasonable control (do not have enough vehicles or drivers to sustain headway).
The current metrics seem to me to be a substantial part of the problem, the service is either in the green or not, and shitty service can be well into the green. They do not do what they should, which is clearly identify and highlight, where there are fixable issues with the environment in which they run. The mayor’s office and the city itself should be helping, but this requires the T.T.C. to be transparent and vocal. Management seems to effectively hide all problems regardless of source, they also seemed to have given up on addressing issues. They have a new mayor, who has given some ground, now is the time to take back control, and fix what they can and highlight what they can’t (and why, and who might and how).
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It’s ironic how the ATU 113 (Union Executive members) is quick to blame management on faults and how inadequate they are in resolving issues such as schedules and so on. I drove and managed streetcar lines for several years, and let me tell you, what both parties do.
First of all, the TTC does not create a schedule where majority of the streetcars going in one direction come in a “congo line” … that’s the work of either a delay on the line, or operators who decide to take matters in to their own hands and drive faster than their schedule, thus leaving a significant gap in the line where “short turns” are a necessary option. When the public voiced their frustration of too much short turns occurring, management decided to let streetcars continue on the route, and just have operators “switch” vehicles instead mid-way, so as to not disrupt the service … the union was not happy with this, so they voiced their displeasure by saying … this is not “safe” … even though every operator was trained to follow a procedure on how this should be safely done.
As for those that intentionally disrupt the line, or feel that they are above management because they are protected by the union attitude … well, management has done everything they can to discipline them, but guess who comes back to put them back in the driver’s seat … yup, no other than the same union who does not take their own actions into accountability. There has even been multiple incidents in the past where any operator caught not “fit for duty”, meaning they are on drugs, intoxicated or just not in the right condition to drive, gets placed back in the driver seat, because the union puts them back … believe me, the Commission would love to kick these people out.
It is true that management has faults, and most of them are due to inexperienced supervisors or management personnel who think they know what to do, but haven’t the slightest idea, because simply put, they’ve never driven one. The only way, one can figure out the schedules, and base their training and development of materials for streetcars to run in fluidity, is as you said, have the same people developing the schedules sit, or better yet drive the streetcar for a few days, nights and rush hours … not hire some poor shlep who is under medical transitional work, do the dirty work. Because honestly, these guys have no clue either on what to look for and what it takes.
As for the “Union”, they are a joke … you never see them … unless of course it’s election time for them … they parade themselves in the media, only for face time … some put up a good fight for the operators that truly need it, but overall, the majority of them are completely useless. At least if management were to do something wrong, they are held accountable, and disciplined accordingly. People shouldn’t be quick to judge: try being in our shoes (operator and management) … and the you’ll get a clearer picture on who really is doing their best to improve everyone’s (union members and the public) experience.
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The question I would have: Is this is a case that is taken to the OLRB, or is management simply not willing to stand its ground. I have had to deal with situations involving unions in my own company, and I have not been willing to back off on some issues. If progressive discipline has followed, and we have stayed with written policy, we have not had issues. The OLRB may be unpredictable, but unless management negotiated away the power to manage, they should still be able to discipline employees who are in clear violation of policy and received progressive discipline.
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It’s funny he claims that management doesn’t schedule drivers to maintain an unsafe schedule when photos of waybills have been posted on Facebook and Twitter of the 73 Royal York bus that is scheduled to arrive at the subway station at 7:35pm, unload all passengers, then load all passengers, and is schedule to leave at 7:35pm. How can that possibly be safe?? Does the TTC union create the schedules or does management??? Truth is management does!!
So to reply to Sam Peterson’s post:
You ask why the union gets the operators’ jobs back? It’s because TTC inept management penalizes operators for not adhering to schedules that cannot be possibly or safely maintained!!
Sam Peterson claims management is held accountable for its action??? What a joke!!! If TTC management was held accountable, route schedules such as the 73 Royal York bus posted above would not be printed and enforced today! We have computers that using excel spread sheets that can create a schedule using a formula that schedules 2-3 minutes at the subway station between arrival and departure. Why are these spreadsheets not used??? You call that accountable???
Why are operators sent messages to stay on schedule via the trump unit (photos posted on Facebook and Twitter) if that schedule is impossible to maintain??? You call that accountable??? Who exactly are TTC management accountable to??
Sam Peterson claims TTC management would never force union workers to do unsafe work. If that was the case, why did it take the Ministry of Labour to lock out all bike racks on Artic &Orion VII buses, NOT TTC MANAGEMENT, when the union members brought it to TTC management’s attention??? Why has TTC appealed the bike rack lock out order in regards to Orion VII buses if the Ministry of Labour deemed it unsafe??? Could that be because 90% of the buses in service are Orion VII?? How does that show concern for union operator or passenger safety??? Let’s call a spade a spade, TTC management is NOT held accountable for their actions!!!
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Yes bottom line, the management is at the table as is fully aware of the union’s duty to represent. If a union does not represent (fight for) its members whether its believes they are in the right or not, the union is in failing in its obligations to represent. It is up to the management to: 1 — negotiate to protect its prerogative to manage, 2 — document clear violations and follow a progressive discipline process, and 3 — to not ask members to do work that is either unsafe, or cannot reasonably be achieved, and to actually supervise in a reasonable fashion said work.
Management should know, be in a position to direct, and be aware of the departure and arrival times of buses, and know what held the bus up en route. If a driver is not given reasonable time for breaks and bathroom, well it will be taken regardless (and management will be hard pressed to discipline). If the problem really is the members, and the union, it is up to management to correct it, and to manage.
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