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OPTA Committees are peer groups that allow members from across the province to collaborate on operational challenges, share best practices, and identify opportunities for collective action. Through committees, members share standard operating procedures, create working groups to tackle specific topics, and borrow good ideas for making transit safe and reliable.

  • Shaping Public Transit Policy: Committees offer members the chance to directly influence and advocate for transit policies in Ontario.
  • Peer Groups: Committees function as collaborative groups addressing common job descriptions and industry challenges.
  • Meeting Formats: Committees meet both in-person and virtually.
  • Focus Areas: Emphasize policy development, collaboration, operational challenges, and strategic initiatives.
  • Professional Growth: Participation fosters networking and contributes to personal and professional development.
  • Meaningful Contribution: Members play a key role in advancing public transit systems across the province.

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Safety and Training Committee

In response to the Coroner’s Inquest that resulted from the fatal collision at Westboro transitway station in Ottawa, the Jury issued 60 recommendations in their verdict, with three (3) of particular interest to OPTA (recommendation 58, 59, and 60). Coroner’s Inquests are formal, quasi-judicial processes, presided over by a Coroner, a provincially appointed medical practitioner empowered by the Coroner’s Act to investigate certain deaths occurring within the province of Ontario. The focus of the Inquest was fact-finding and making safety-related recommendations to prevent fatalities in the future; it is not a process that assigns responsibility or blame.

In order to address the recommendations, OPTA has created the Safety and Training Committee, designed to be a forum to discuss recent serious transit bus collisions using a safe systems approach. This Committee will provide a structured forum for members to share lessons learned following serious collisions or safety incidents, discuss contributing factors, and advance transit safety using a safe systems approach. This work aligns with OPTA’s ongoing efforts to support safety improvements across Ontario’s transit systems. The Safety and Training Committee reflects OPTA’s longstanding focus on advancing safety practices, improving system design, and supporting continuous improvement through information sharing among Ontario transit agencies. The Committee will leverage members’ expertise to explore issues and produce non-binding guidance that agencies may adopt locally as appropriate, recognizing that OPTA does not mandate province-wide standards or procedures.

Training had notionally been included in OPTA’s HR/Ops Committee Terms of Reference but had not received the focus it deserves. In consultation with that Committee Executive, and given the number of recommendations in the Coroner’s Report relating to training, there was more synergy to bring training into the scope of this committee.