Halifax Transit resolves communications issue, says service was not affected

A communication glitch at Halifax Transit may be a symptom of larger problems.

Halifax Transit says it has resolved a communications issue that threatened to disrupt bus services on Wednesday.

The Halifax Regional Municipality said technical difficulties impacted the communications system for Halifax Transit and could potentially disrupt bus services.

On Thursday, Halifax Transit said the issued was resolved.

“The impact to the communications system was not the result of a cyber security incident,” a news release reads. “While staff worked to resolve the issue, there was no loss of service to conventional and Access-A-Bus service, due to the dedication of our Halifax Transit operators and management team.

“Residents are thanked for their patience and understanding while this issue was being resolved.”

Patricio Garcia, the president of ATU 508, says it was a “complete system shutdown” where there was no communication between bus drivers and dispatch, with no real-time tracking.

“Halifax Transit ended up putting supervisors and management at every terminal so that they could communicate with transit operators,” he says.

Longer routes had “absolutely no communication,” he says.

The biggest issue was with the Access-A-Bus service as it requires people to book rides in advance.

“Once the system went down, anything beyond (initially scheduled pickups), (drivers) had to call dispatch in order to actually figure out what their next pickups were, because that wasn’t loaded on the system anymore.”

Garcia says he was told there was a system update that was performed during the day that led to the technical glitch – and that future updates would now have to be done at “a better time that wouldn’t cause this kind of a disruption.”

Coun. Kathryn Morse, who is also the chair of the Transportation Standing Committee, says the disruption lasted for six or seven hours.

She says it was a “major concern,” but that it was “resolved fairly quickly.”

Halifax Transit’s executive director wasn’t available for an interview on Thursday, and the city didn’t confirm the cause of the technical issue, referring CTV to the city’s PSA.

-With files from CTV News Atlantic’s Callum Smith

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page