The Toronto Transit Commission has grounded more than 100 buses after a routine maintenance mishap on Thursday afternoon discovered a system error that endangered a driver’s life.
A TTC operator was returning to a bus storage station in Scarborough when a faulty door caused the vehicle to speed up, in what the TTC calls a “full throttle situation.”
“Our maintenance folks were doing some work on our articulated buses and discovered what essentially amounts to an unexpected acceleration of the bus,” TTC spokesperson Brad Ross told CP24. “So whether in drive or park, it would suddenly jack rabbit forward in what we call full throttle.”
The driver was able to regain control of the bus, but this unexpected acceleration has grounded the TTC’s entire fleet of articulated buses –153 in total.
In the meantime, the municipal transit provider has contacted the bus’s manufacturer – NovaBus.
According to Ross, the Quebec-based division of Volvo Group-Canada has experienced this glitch before.
“Nova has a software fix for this issue, which is being applied now,” he said.
But commuters should expect delays tomorrow because the TTC will have to “move buses around,” resulting in bus route changes.
“There will perhaps be longer than normal wait times and buses may be more crowded,” Ross explained.
These 77-seater buses were brought in four years ago to replace the TTC’s aging 46-seater buses, according to its website.
These older models, which have not experienced this particular problem, will be reallocated across all seven TTC garages, a news release said.
The articulated buses operate on several routes across the city -- Bathurst, Dufferin, Finch West, Sheppard East, Steeles Express and Keele.
No customers were on board when the incident occurred and no one was injured.
