The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) released its safety issues watchlist last week.
The list identified safety issues in the air, marine and rail modes of transportation in Canada that, according to the TSB, pose a great risk to the travel of Canadians.
The TSB stated that emergency preparedness on large passenger ferries, like the ones operated by B.C. Ferries, needs improvement.
And while every service could use improvement, the TSB recommendations for B.C. Ferries are simply not realistic.
The TSB stated that during an emergency, it is essential that all passengers are accounted for, and in the case of an abandoned ship situation, that they all board life rafts in a safe, organized and efficient manner.
On most routes that B.C. Ferries operates, a detailed manifest naming all the passengers on board is just not realistic.
Could you imagine having to arrive at the terminal hours before a sailing so your name could be charted before you boarded? It would be impossible, and sailings would be delayed for hours. Some might not even sail at all. Right now, on longer routes, such as five-hour-plus sailings in the North, a passenger manifest is kept. And a head count is done on the shorter southern routes, so if there was an emergency, B.C. Ferries knows how many people they have on board.
The TSB is also looking for better emergency procedures and more efficient drills from the ferry corporation, even going so far as to suggest getting regular passengers to participate in the drills.
According to Ferries' media relations officer Deborah Marshall, all crews conduct drills once a week to test a variety of emergency situations. But using the evacuation slides and shoots is a costly and time-consuming process, one that if practised on a regular basis would cost the ferry service many dollars, not to mention lost hours restoring the equipment properly to allow the vessel to sail.
Again, it goes back to timing. Given the vast number of sailings and the time crunch B.C. Ferries is on trying to stay on schedule, they simply can't afford to have a vessel down for hours at a time while they roll up their evacuation equipment.
While we can see the TSB is trying to offer solutions to make travel on ferries safer for passengers, these recommendations miss the mark. They simply aren't practical.
