Drivers illegally passing school buses in Thunder Bay remains a serious problem, the city's school transportation consortium said.

As of Friday, Jan. 31, city school bus drivers had reported 737 vehicles illegally passing their bus while its stop arm is extended and red lights flashing. That is an average of 7.7 vehicles per school day, Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay (STSTB) said in a Facebook post.

That's up from an average of 6.5 per school day in 2023-24, 5.2 per school say in 2022-23, and 3.7 per school say in 2021-22.

The violations are reported by the bus drivers themselves, said Craig Murphy, consortium manager with STSTB. That information is shared with Thunder Bay police and local OPP.

"It's very frustrating," he said. "Obviously we've been trying to get the message out for several years, trying to work with various levels of government to help us deal with this situation."

"Our business is student safety, but it should be the concern of the entire community, and when we have a situation where we're having motorists putting the lives of and safety of children in jeopardy in our community, it's very frustrating when we see the numbers increasing year over year."

School buses in Thunder Bay don't have stop-arm cameras, which would automatically take a photo of any vehicles illegally passing a stopped school bus.

"We did a presentation to the city to show them there is an issue here, it's significant," Murphy said. "At that time, stop arm cameras were going to be allowed in the province of Ontario. They're just working through changing the Highway Traffic Act and writing the regulations … in order to allow stop arm cameras, video footage, to be admissible in court without the need for an eyewitness."

However, in 2022, the city said stop-arm cameras were "not feasible at this time."

In a report to council, city administration said any images captured by the cameras would need to be sent to a processing centre in Toronto for review by provincial offence officers.

However, the report stated, the processing centre was not accepting stop arm camera footage, meaning the city would need to start its own program, or partner with another city that's already doing so.

When the report was released, it was noted the only other Ontario city that was processing its own stop-arm camera footage was Ottawa, which wasn't accepting footage from other municipalities.

Murphy said processing remains a problem. The province maintains a database of driver information, that would allow owners of vehicles that are caught on camera illegally passing a school bus to be identified, and ticketed.

Murphy said there are companies that are willing to install stop arm cameras and process the footage, and send it to law enforcement if an infraction is identified.

The costs would be covered by the tickets that have been issued; when the ticket is paid, a percentage goes to the company to cover costs.

However, Murphy said, the province will not allow its vehicle owner database to be accessed by companies that run stop-arm camera programs.

"This is a database that the Ontario government gives access to private parking garage owners, private toll companies, private investigators," he said. "These industries all have access to go into the system anytime and access motor vehicle information, and who the owner of the vehicle is. But when it comes to stop-arm infraction companies trying to help us deal with this problem, the province will not give them access."

CBC contacted the Ontario Ministry of Transportation for comment, but has not yet received a response.

Currently, bus drivers in Thunder Bay are asked to record information about drivers illegally passing them. But Murphy said that's not always possible.

"We realized they can't always get the information that police require to to lay a charge," he said. "When you're trying to control the movements of children while stopped in traffic, it's difficult to catch the details of a license plate and description of the driver and other details police need as it speeds by your bus."

Meanwhile, the federal government has announced its mandating "perimeter visibility systems" on school buses.

"These systems use a series of cameras mounted onto the outside of the bus, allowing bus drivers to see if anyone is around the bus before driving off," Transport Canada said in a media release earlier this week. "This technology offers enhanced visibility beyond what mirrors alone can provide. With this new regulation, Canada becomes the first country in the world to require new school buses to be fitted with this technology."

"In addition to new perimeter visibility systems, the Government of Canada also introduced requirements for the installation of infraction cameras for manufacturers who wish to voluntarily install them on buses. An infraction camera could capture a photo of any vehicle illegally passing a bus."

Murphy said he's happy to see more safety features added to school buses.

"The buses will be installed with cameras pointing down around the entire perimeter, and also the driver inside the school bus will be able to see students or anything in that what we call a danger zone," he said. "We teach students from day one stay out of the danger zone."

"The danger zone is that three feet or so out from a bus all the way around," Murphy said. "Bus drivers have lots of mirrors to be able to see down the sides of the bus as well as the front of the bus. But they can't see the back of the bus and obviously a system in the bus where the cameras will show a clear image all the way around at once, again, we certainly welcome that."

Transport Canada said the new requirement for perimeter visibility systems came into effect on Dec. 14, 2024, and "all new school buses will be equipped with perimeter visibility systems as of Nov. 1, 2027."