The Transport Co-ordinator
Meet Ken
Ken Gordon is the manager of Bus Operations with Transport Ottawa. Ken oversees all the bus tour operations, including booking and administrative support. He’s been with the city of Ottawa since 2010.
What was a typical day pre-COVID?
"So, a typical day pre-Covid, um…it was, it was constantly putting out fires, so, um, we were on the heels of—sorry, we were just coming off of what we termed the Workforce Adjustment where we were supposed to reduce our operating workforce by 15%, um, because of the launch of the train.
And as a result of the issues they experienced on Line 1, the, um, shortcomings on the train, we ended up keeping a lot of those operators on, um, but for a period of time where we had given the operators notice, contractually we have to give them a certain period of notice that they’re going to be made redundant. We were still actively recruiting because we had to hire on employees to support operations until the train went live.
So…trying to recruit people, telling them that they’re full-time permanent, but that they’re going to be let-go in maybe six, maybe nine months, um, it was extremely difficult. So we found ourselves short operators leading up to the launch of the light-rail. And then following the light-rail, um, we found it again extremely difficult to recruit operators because we just told everybody we were going to lay—[unclear], operators, and that didn’t happen. So people were skeptical about applying to OC Transpo, and, um, there was operational pressure from, um, our political masters that we had to, um, ensure a certain level of service.
So it was, it was a real struggle following the launch of light-rail, and that went right through, well, we launched light-rail in September and then from there, um, we entered into winter which is a different operation altogether. And then we just never really recovered.
We never really recovered from the shortage of operators we experienced as a result of the workforce adjustment so we were going into the busiest time of the year, in the winter, with a very reduced workforce. And, typically, whenever we measure our, um, capabilities or operational readiness, we base it on what we call our spareboard. And what that is, is, we have operators that are set up as contingency operators that come in and fill those holes for operators that call in sick or don’t show up or just can’t come to work for whatever reason.
And typically we want our spareboard to be between 20 to 22% of our, um, total number of runs. And, um, you know we-we’ve run as 18.5 to 19%. This particular time we were running in the range of 12 to 13%.
So it was extremely rough, um, we were constantly trying to figure out ways to, to make things work, to make things better, to deliver the service, and deal with the train issues that we were experiencing with the light-rail. So there was the long days, especially, especially with it being in the winter, um. You know if you’re expecting snow or bad weather, you typically get there early to make sure that the AMP [Second Listener, unsure?] clicks well and then you find yourself in the control centre working late because if you want to be there for [PM?] as well, and then if something happens on the rail line then that just extends your day. So, it was, it was constantly trying to put out fires, no fixed start or end time, um, you know, chaotic situation after chaotic situation. And then, you know, it just all stopped.
Um, there were, there were days where I remember driving to work and I would have my radio, my operational radio in the car. And I’d be hearing calls about, um, our mobile team is getting stage R1, and what that is R1 is the bus replacement service that we put in place whenever the rail line goes down.
So I would hear a call that they’re getting ready for R1 and, you know, at first it was a big deal but by March it was commonplace that, you know, it’s another R1, we gotta get ready for this. So I would typically pop into a station to see what was going on and I just remember the thousands of people that would be on the platform, and the just, the, and, you know, credit to our supervisors, they did a great job at trying to manage it but you’re trying to move thousands and thousands of people that have this expectation of transit that they get on a train that you can’t match on a bus. ‘Cause we don’t have buses just sitting there waiting to go in case the train breaks down, so we’re pulling things from regular service and there’s always a delay and getting resources in, so it was just constant chaos.
What changed after COVID began?
"And then, the moment Covid hit and things started shutting down, it was like a ghost town…um…and the train started to run well because it didn’t have the same operational pressures that it did with the thousands of riders that it had at any one time. And the buses were empty, things ran on time, there was no traffic, the stations were empty, um…it was just different. And I remember going into work and sitting there and thinking like “What do I do?” You know, you’re, you’re so used to getting into that, that rhythm where it’s just go, go, go, go, go that when that’s not happening it just-I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Um, I was getting home at a decent time, I was having dinner with my family, I was able to, um, you know sleep in past 6 o’clock in the morning. It was just different. And for a period of time after Covid hit and things were shut down I was still going into work, um, and then shortly after they announced that we would be working from home…support operations from home.
Yeah, and it was very, like…it was real…and for it last so many years, just leading up the launch of rail and the launch rail and post-rail and the issues we had with post-rail it was like, this moment where we got our head above water and we were able to breathe.
And, it felt good for a period of time, not being busy. Like I said some people were walking around, and I was one of them, not really knowing what we were doing with ourselves, and the customer complaints stopped coming in and the councillor complaints stopped coming in, um, service ran on time, there was no issues.
And then the questions started. And then it started getting busy, just in a very different way. So, there was this…I would say probably two or three weeks where it was very quiet, and, you know, like, people probably could have shut off their computers and no one would have known it."
How did you adapt to COVID in the workplace?
Initial changes
"So, so we had made several, um, several pretty significant changes amongst our conventional, para, and contracted fleets. Um, you know, in the early days Covid was new, there wasn’t a lot known about it, um, there was a lot of fear amongst, you know, our staff and then a lot of our riders, especially the customers we serve on para-transpo because of their vulnerable state. So, the initial and…I think this is just as a result of the fact that our conventional operation probably encompasses 90% of our daily business, so one of the changes that they implemented were “What are we going to do on conventional? How can we do this on a double decker or a 40-footer or a 60 foot bus?”
So, you know, we…we implemented some policy changes immediately on conventional, like I said the rear-door boarding, and that was meant to keep the operator safe because the operator wasn’t wearing a mask. And we wanted to have an opportunity for the, for our staff to have distance from our customers. Um, and it wasn’t because we, you know, we-we don’t trust our customers or our, you know—it was, we can’t afford to lose one more staff because we don’t know what’s gonna come down the road. Are we gonna lose 5% of our staff due to Covid? Are we gonna have 25% of our staff off for Covid? So we were trying to keep them as safe as possible because there was so many unknowns. So the implement of the rear-door boarding, and they taped off the front of the bus so that people couldn’t come past the accessible seating at the front.
The only people who were still able to board at the front were those that required the accessible seating or had a mobility device. And, for the most part, um, that change went over well. Um, there were some operators that were concerned that allowing people in the front door was a risk to them, um, but we-we managed that. And, we-we, as we got new information in we shared that with our operators and they became more comfortable with how we were operating. As a result of that, because we’re telling people “Come on the back door, you don’t have to come to the front” or “You can’t come to the front”, um, we also had this sort of, semi, quasi policy that it was free. So, if you pay cash, or if you require a transfer you have to pay through the front door.
Whereas if you’re paying with Presto you can pay through the rear-door. Um, but, some, and I agreed with the concept that it was discriminatory where if someone in a mobility device required accessible seating was to need the bus, the expectation was that they would have to pay, because they’re boarding at the front.
Whereas, you know, Joe Public is rear-door boarding, they don’t have to pay. So, you know, there was sort of this unwritten rule it’s free. Just let it go, let them on the back door, let people on the front door, don’t, don’t say or do anything.
As a result of that, we had an increased number of, um, they call them non-destination riders.
The homeless. Riding the buses. So, with Tim Hortons and everything else closed and no place for them to go they would get on the buses and trains. And they would take the trains to sleep and, you know, they would be on the buses to be warm.
How did you adapt to COVID in the workplace?
Staffing changes
".. we implemented a…a booking change, and this is the operator booking that we do which typically takes 10 weeks. We were given instructions to re-do a booking which implemented, basically, a Team A and a Team B. So one week A would come in and the next week B would come in. And you would be off. And the thought was, if you lose one team, you have the other team to rely upon. So you always have somebody on the bench. And so, we had to come up with a structure in order to roll this out. Um basically splitting the operators down the middle, there was no easy way to do it, um, and then to make things worse we couldn’t bring people in to book where they typically come in and tape things on a board and say “This is where I want to work.” We’d do it all by phone.
And then, um, the icing on, you know, the cake was we had to do it in a weekend.
So we, we—it was, you know, we didn’t do it in a weekend we ended up taking four days but it was the longest four days of my life because whenever we got, you know, a few hours of sleep amongst all of us, you know, we had everybody that was available, that was able to conduct the booking actually doing it. So then we implemented this reduced Covid booking, and it took effect immediately, where operators would, you know, work one week be off another week, but when they’re off they’re obviously still getting paid because there’s contractual obligations under the CA. So, um, so…as a result of all that, people started booking at Para-transpo.
…we went to a regular summer booking sort of mid-summer, so this would have been late spring.
And, so, you know we dubbed it the “Covid booking” and for a period of time we had this, and, once more information started coming out and masks came out, then we went back to a regular-style booking because ridership was starting to pick up.
How did you adapt to COVID in the workplace?
Changes to ParaTranspo
"It’s interesting how what worked on conventional, it was like the total opposite for what worked on Para. So, conventional operators, don’t touch customers. They are not accustomed to coming close to customers. Um, they have very little interaction with customers outside of saying “Hello” or “Goodbye.”
So, there was this need on conventional, block everybody off, keep the operator segregated, and that way they were safe. Para physically helps and touches customers.
So Para-Transpo operators physically touch and come into contact with customers, you know, on a daily—well, customer after customer they physically help. So, they were saying “Well, how can we keep the operator segregated in the cab of a Para-bus, but still provide the door-to-door service that we’re mandated to do?”
K: And I remember we had, another Covid task-force they were looking at how we can block off Para-bus and put up, you know, a shield between the operator and then the passengers and…You know, and then they presented it to the, to the Para-Transportation Operational team and, and I remember sitting there with the union executive from Para-Transpo and we just looked at each other and were like “This, this isn’t going to work.”
And, what they were thinking would work in conventional can’t work in Para, so Para needs to have that access to the customer. They hold the customer, they help them carry their bags, they’re in close contact with them, they’re bending down, tying the wheelchairs as the person’s sitting right in front of them. Um, but the other thing is all the other Para-Transpo operators are also First-Aid trained.
So in the event that something happens in the bus they are, I guess, expected to go back and assist that, that customer until emergency services arrive. And there has been instances where, you know, because of the vulnerable state of a lot of our customers, they’ve had a serious medical emergency and the operators had to perform CPR until EMS arrived. So, we weren’t keen on having the operator cab segregated from the operator, or from the passengers side. So that was scrapped and, you know, I had one conventional union rep, and same union, and I had the conventional union rep there arguing that we need the conventional operators segregated from the customers because they don’t want to catch anything and I have the other, same union but different union rep, sitting there saying “Para-Transpo operators need to be with their customers and need to be able to have access to our customers.”
So, we, we opted not to do anything with the Para-buses, um…we did implement a similar, I guess, unwritten rule where we didn’t accept money from customers. So if we had customers saying they wanted to pay cash we wouldn’t accept cash because of the Covid, so there was that, um, but, we did give them gloves. And that was something that was different from the conventional side. And, we issued the Para-Transpo operators gloves not because…they were worried about catching Covid through touch, um, but it was the perception from the customer side of things, it was their perception that, um, that we issued the gloves. And, you know, we almost had to force the operators to wear the gloves, and it was done just to keep our customers, in their mind safe.
Um, Para-Transpo operators, you know, to date since this has happened, since Covid broke out, we’ve only had one Para-Transpo operator who contracted Covid and it was outside of work.
And, you know, we attribute that to the fact that Para-Transpo operators are already accustomed to washing their hands. They go into a hospital before picking up a customer, they’re washing their hands, constantly using Purell, um. They, they practice good hand hygiene so this is, while this disease is very different and they way in which it can spread is, you know…there’s a greater chance of it spreading, um, the manner in which you can defend yourself against it is similar to what they were doing in the other things they were accustomed to dealing with. So, didn’t really phase them.
You know, on the contracted side they had wheelchair accessible vans and sedans. They immediately outfitted their fleet and put up, um, the Plexiglas shields between the driver and the customer.
Um, you know in a para-bus it’s easier to get out and walk to the back whereas you can’t do that in a sedan so you have to get out in any way. So they, they put up the Plexiglas shield and, um, you know, they felt that was adequate to protect their drivers. They changed some things, keeping the windows down and, um, they then implemented a new cleaning regime where, um, they would, they would deep clean their fog—the car, uh, daily. Um, but uh, you know, it was an interesting time because, um, the rider-ship, like, overnight just dropped.
And we went from 4,000 trips a day to 400 trips a day.And those that we were transporting, it was basically just those that required life-sustaining medical treatment.So dialysis, chemo, and stuff like that. Um, and then on the conventional side, the people that were transporting were, were primarily those that had no other choice, those were front-line workers.
So nurses going to the hospitals, um, people working at grocery stores and gas stations, and, and we’re still trying to adjust to this day but because the process and how we book, it take so long and it’s a very political thing, we…we haven’t adjusted our service on the conventional side to meet the, um, or to respond to what has happened with Covid, whereas at Para we have.
Pandemic workplace:
Object for museum collection
"I couldn’t think, I couldn’t think of any one thing that would be unique to me, like, you know, having a laptop set up at my dining room table is something that is, is different in our household because it was, like, the dining room was for show only and used 2 or 3 times a year.
Now it’s like a clutter of mess and papers and equipment and different things. Um, you know, my, my ridiculous Amazon bills that I get, that’s uh, (laughs).
That’s another thing but I’m sure that’s not unique to me. Um, you know, I don’t know, um, maybe, maybe something like a photograph of, of a transit station like a Tunney’s Pasture or Blair’s Station sort of pre- and post-Covid.
And, I remember looking at photos of, and I was looking at them this morning of, of a Tunney’s rush-hour or when there’s a minor hiccup on the train, and the platforms are so full that it looks like people are going to spill out onto the roadway because, like, it’s, it’s just so full. And then a whole bunch of buses would come in and fill up and it would sort of clear people out, but then a train would come in and back them full again. Now, like, you know, immediately post-Covid you’d be lucky to find 2 or 3 people on the platform.
So, you know, you went from hundreds or thousands of people on a platform and then 24 hours later there was three.
So, to me, that, that was, you know, a huge, like, a huge eye-opener that, that things were gonna change for us and that it would be like this for a while.
Um, you know I’d like to share something on the Para side, but not a whole lot, like, other than the PPE that they’re wearing and the reduction in the rider-ship it’s business as usual in the Para.