The TTC is spending about $95,000 a week on employing drivers that are being sent home early after five hours of sitting around.

According to CEO Andy Byford, the TTC currently has more operators than normal designated as spares and as a result as many as 85 of them are regularly being sent home with eight hours pay after five hours of waiting for an assignment, as required under the terms of the collective agreement.

The glut of spare drivers is the result of lower-than estimated retirement numbers, an increased number of employees returning from long-term sick leave and additional hiring that has been done for a number of service improvements that have not yet been fully implemented.

So far in 2015 the unused spare drivers have cost the TTC about $1 million, though Byford told CP24 that he expects the operating budget to be balanced by the end of the year.

“Any big transit organization has standby operators in case someone gets ill and I would much rather be answering difficult questions because we have too many staff than be castigated for not having enough staff as that would mean we would be cancelling services,” Byford said. “This is very much a temporary blip and by the end of the year we will have more than made it up.”

Over the next few months, Byford said the additional operators will be used to cover for drivers that are undergoing recertification and additional training, which should result in savings on overtime costs.

Byford also said that the additional drivers will be required as the TTC increases bus and subway frequency as part of a number of service improvements approved by city council.

“We will be more than ready for (the) Pan-Am (Games) and we will be more than ready to bring forward the additional services, which is good news for customers,” he said.

Mayor John Tory said Thursday that while that number may be a bit high, he believes it is better to have too many drivers than too few.

"I would hope we could achieve more precision on the number of drivers that are needed," Tory told reporters.

"...but I guess I would also know that Mr. Byford and others would be subject to severe criticism if one day when the subway shut down and we needed people to drive those shuttle buses on an emergency basis there were no drivers because we were short."

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