The Reality of Working for Voyago in 2024 as a Driver in London, Ontario

- Why the most vital component of this billion-dollar company is also the most disrespected
- How drivers feel about working for the company
- Why it’s difficult to find paratransit in London and why there are delays in service
- What you should know before you apply

Introduction
Chances are, you’ve noticed the distinctive Voyago fleet of vehicles during your daily travels in
London and the surrounding areas. It's hard to miss them; just spend five minutes at any major
intersection, and you’re likely to spot a Voyago vehicle. Voyago has steadily expanded its fleet
and services over the years. In this article, we'll shine a light on the backbone of the company:
the drivers. We’ll delve into what it’s like to work for Voyago as a driver. Drivers are the ones at
the bottom of the company's success chain, and we’ll explore why there’s a constant turnover
among employees despite increasing revenues.
Origins of 947465 Ontario Ltd aka Voyageur
The Voyago story dates back to 1979 when Norm and Darlene Ferguson embarked on their
entrepreneurial journey. The company, known then as Voyageur Transportation, began
delivering lost luggage to passengers’ doorsteps. Over time, Voyageur diversified its services to
include school bussing, package delivery, patient transfer, and Checker Limousine.
Voyageur’s school transit division grew to manage around 500 buses, facilitating the
transportation of 25,000 children across Ontario. The Checker Limousine service initially
consisted of eight employees, and a fleet of approximately 90 cars. Checker catered to
customers seeking rides from the London Airport, especially when traditional taxis were
unwilling to make the journey. Patient Transfer Services played a vital role in serving 200 Long
Term Care Homes and 80 Hospitals, facilitating patient transfers for appointment services.

Voyago Transition
Voyageur Transportation encountered a legal challenge from a Quebec-based company with a
similar name. On November 14th, 2016 Voyageur filed for the Trademark of Voyago and
rebranded itself. The Voyago trademark now encompasses all facets of the company’s
operations, including bus services, paratransit, patient transfer, and Checker services.

When Norm and Darlene chose to retire, their sons Perry and Dwayne took over the business.
Together they grew the business to approximately 1,400 employees. The school bus section
went from transporting 25,000 children to 33,000.
In 2003, Perry Ferguson won the London Chamber’s Business Achievement Award in the large
business category. In 2011, he was inducted into the London Business Hall of Fame.
The Mom & Pop Scenario

Imagine a small company that offers internet services named MomNet. The company is locally
based, family owned, and employs 10 people. You can walk in from the street and speak to
them about billing or technical issues. A phone call is all that’s needed to resolve a double bill
cycle. The company grows to other cities over time until one day they reach the attention of Bull
Canada. Bull Canada is a Canada wide corporation that decides to purchase MomNet. Now
MomNet has thousands of employees across Canada without a storefront to resolve billing or
technical issues. Your only resolve is to spend an hour on hold waiting to speak to a Bull billing
or technical expert. Even then, the next cycle you’re billed twice and so you call back to speak to
a different person. There are numerous outages as the infrastructure has become too large to
maintain effectively.
We’ve all been there and can relate to the frustration of trying to resolve disputes with large
corporations. When smaller operations are swallowed up, the result is almost never in the
consumer’s favour.

Transdev

This is exactly what happened to Voyago when Transdev decided they wanted another
monopoly in transportation. On Monday April 19, 2019 Transdev Canada announced the
acquisition of Voyago. The acquisition would grow Transdev Canada to 2,600 employees that
would provide transportation services across Ontario and Quebec through 36 million passenger
trips annually.

Before the merger, Transdev Canada operated in Montreal and the GTA area and held 20
contracts with transit authorities, municipalities and school boards.

The merger was announced as creating revenue of $188 million dollars.

Arthur Nicolet, Transdev Canada’s CEO wrote in a press-release, “We will share best practices
and cultivate talent from both companies to strengthen our offers and solutions for clients and
passengers. Our teams will integrate and will be the actors shaping new pages of history for
these two growing companies.”

Make no mistake, Transdev has strengthened their solutions. In February of 2024, they
announced they’d received $6 million to add electric buses to their 82 existing EV’s in Quebec.

They took over First Transit in B.C.

They took over Patient Transfer Services in Manitoba.
They took over East Ferris Bus Lines in Ontario.
They took over Priority Patient Transfer Service Inc. in Ottawa.
They took over Kunkel Bus Lines in Ontario.
They took over Ro-Bus in Quebec.
Transdev was chosen to operate and maintain the new Ontario Line high-speed driverless
subway line in Toronto for a period of 30 years.

With each acquisition, the word-salad press releases make it sound almost appealing:
“with the aim of offering a range of multi-modal services to serve communities, while remaining
close to the specific needs of each territory.” and, "This acquisition helps us not only to lead the
way in environmentally friendly student transportation, but also shaping the perspectives of
tomorrow's leaders by continuing to provide them with safe, reliable, and efficient mobility
solutions everyday.

Shaping the perspectives of tomorrow’s leaders you say? If there’s any perspective to be
learned by today’s youth, it’s that capitalism is alive and well and that the big guy is concerned
with profit. Small business ventures don’t stand a chance against corporate giants such as
Transdev. During my training, the operations manager explained that if there’s a competitor out
there, Transdev will go out and buy automobile supplies if only to keep the competitor from
having access to them. That was my first impression of Voyago/Transdev, and not a positive one.

In 2022, Transdev boasted €9.3 billion euros ($13,747,260,000.00 in Canadian) revenue with
29.7% of that stemming from the Americas (Canada included). The company’s net income was
€20 million or $29,564,000.00 Canadian.

Voyago’s Revenue
Voyago is now just another ledger line for the Transdev bookkeepers. Voyago doesn’t perform
vehicle repairs for the public. They don’t sell used vehicles. They don’t offer paid seminars, sell
baked goods, they don’t rent property. In fact, all of Voyago’s services fall under that of
transportation. Transportation means you require DRIVERS. Drivers are required for school
transportation, for ambulatory transportation, for para-transit and for taxi (Checker).

This means that managers, health & safety, fleet management, dispatchers, mechanics, trainers,
call centre, cleaners, and I.T. services all exist as cost centres. These are services which must be
paid for in order to operate the company.

The sole income of Voyago is of course procuring service contracts. The process works
something like this; A company such as the London Transit Commission will put out a tender for
services. The tender might say, “We’re looking for a provider to deliver our para-transit services
for three years.”
A company will submit a tender and a price. The company (in this case LTC) chooses a tender
which might not always the lowest price. The paperwork is signed and the press releases are
issued. The only way Voyago makes money is through contracts with other companies whether
it’s with schools, bus lines, etc.

Voyago/LTC – Breaking down the numbers

In 2019 the LTC voted to accept Voyago’s bid for primary service provider for the
delivery of their specialized transit service. The tender covers five
years from August 2020 through to July 2025.

The tender required a vehicle capable of holding four wheelchairs and

accommodating 10 passengers. There was a requirement for
audio/video recording equipment to be installed as well as a computer
tablet which would keep track of the driver’s trips. Voyago was granted
time to outfit their fleet with the additional equipment.

Voyago asked for $60.60 per hour (their previous 2019 contract rate was $52.28) which is an
increase of 15.9%. On any given weekday there are approximately 47 Para-transit drivers and 8
additional drivers that use the new fleet.

This makes 55 drivers, working 11 hour shifts at a billable rate of $60.60/hour. The total is
$34,995.50(minus refuelling time) per DAY being billed to the London Transit Commission.
This is over $240,000 per week that Voyago brings in. Naturally the managers, mechanics and
other staff must be paid out from the amounts. To put it into perspective, a single driver
working one day brings in approximately $630 (the last half hour is usually not billable as the
driver returns to base, and gasses up the vehicle).

Why is Para-Transit in London broken?

Now we look at the reasons why London’s Para-transit system is so broken.
The driver is the only person performing work that is billable.
Given the urgent need to stay afloat in the transportation business, the LTC and Voyago have
thrown the drivers under the proverbial bus. Drivers are paid approximately $18-20 per hour
despite being the sole breadwinner for the entire company.
To add insult to injury, drivers don’t receive lunch breaks nor scheduled breaks. It’s likely that
the LTC stipulated this, or Voyago offered it. After all, if you’re driving inside a hot vehicle for 11
hours daily, you don’t need food or rest. The irony of course being that taking breaks is one of
Health and Safety’s solutions to fighting driver fatigue. We’ll get to that shortly.
Did the negotiations transpire like this?

LTC: We have a need for paratransit drivers.

Voyago: We’ll give them to you.
LTC: What about lunches?
Voyago: Nah, our drivers can eat as they drive.
LTC: What about breaks?
Voyago: Nah, let them rest between calls.
LTC: Should they stop at 8 hours?
Voyago: No, we want more money. Make them work 11.
It should be mentioned that most workers don’t want a lunch as this would only extend the
working day. What workers do want is a break. The position of management (Cory Webb,
General Manager) is that drivers should have ample time to rest between calls.
At the beginning of a shift, your calls are downloaded onto a tablet along with pickup times. If
there are gaps between calls, breaks can be taken. Unfortunately, LTC likes to provide drivers
with “add ons” where last minute calls are thrown at drivers. In other scenarios a driver could
be falling behind on a call and so it’s transferred to another driver. There are also regrettable
days where a single driver calling in sick, creates a domino effect where all of their team
members now have to take on those calls.
It should be pointed out that quite frequently the calls are minutes apart so that drivers must
complete a pick up or drop off and then scurry to the next location a few kilometers away. And
this is why many times Para-Transit drivers are late. The LTC scheduling system doesn’t provide
much forgiveness for things such as traffic, road closures, getting lost or having difficulty finding
addresses. Once a driver falls behind, it’s difficult to get caught up.
Some times there’ll be a large enough gap after calls that a driver can catch up on his itinerary
and eating, even if he/she is running behind. One of the complaints from the public is that
Voyago drivers are always in a rush, some people allege that drivers commit traffic violations. In
my travels, I’ve never seen any other Voyago driver commit traffic violations but yes, we’re in a
hurry only because the LTC manifest system isn’t very forgiving. If you have a span of 20 minutes
for your only break of the day, you’ll want to keep up on your calls so you can take that break.
For the reasons above, many drivers are fed up with Voyago. The pay is completely below the
skillset and requirements for the job, the lack of breaks weighs on drivers and the shifts are
long.

Culture
As of January 2024, out of 145 Para-Transit employees almost 60% of those were from countries
such as India and Pakistan (my homeland is India). There are two reasons for this in my opinion.
First, nobody else is willing to work for such a pitiful wage and second, often these workers are
seeking Permanent Residency in Canada and need to be working in an industry in demand. This
really comes down to one thing – exploitation.

Safety
It’s almost inexcusable that Voyago and LTC have decided to put people behind the wheel of a
vehicle for 11 hours. Yes, it’s perfectly legal and Voyago will tell you that. We’re not talking legal,
we’re talking SAFETY.
Drivers begin their shift early, 6:30 to 8:30 am and many rely upon caffeine to help them. So
what happens at 3:00? Your blood sugar begins to crash. You begin to get tired. You make
mistakes.

The exhaustion is not always physical, but mental.

Many of the accidents that happen at Voyago occur towards the end of the shift. All of this
could be completely avoided if the company stopped treating employees like slot machines, and
treated them like humans. This means offering 8 hour shifts to those who want them.
Here are a few examples of working conditions:

In 2016, Voyageur employee Mark Mager spoke to the CBC media. He said, "You're driving a
bus, and sometimes you have four or five wheelchairs on board. All of it for the same money as
people at McDonalds," Mager said. Employees at Voyageur want the company to pay a “living
wage”. Voyageur was not available for comment. Every driver who spoke to CBC described
juggling a second job to make ends meet.
In late 2017, Voyageur employee Mark Mager filed a complaint over unpaid time where he was
required to show up 75 minutes before his shift. The Ministry of Labour found Voyageur
violated the Employment Standards Act. Voyageur's VP of HR said, "“We have 1,200 employees
and there will be issues here and there."
The same year, employee Don Gare requested a food break in order to manage his Type II
diabetes. Voyageur refused despite Mr. Gare having two doctor's notes.

A current para-transit driver admits he regularly gets 3 hours of sleep and finds himself dozing
at the wheel.

Can you imagine working for a company who denies you a break so that you can test your blood
sugar?
In May of 2024 a paratransit driver radioed dispatch that a passenger had vomited on
the bus. He requested to return to base so that it could be cleaned up. Voyago
dispatcher Lisa G. advised the driver to use paper towels to clean it. Drivers don’t have
gloves or antibacterial supplies on their buses and wiping any material will spread it and
contact hands.

In a private forum for Voyago workers, several drivers admit to getting only 3-4 hours of sleep
before reporting for work.

Fatigue

On April 29th, 2024, Voyago introduced the “Fit for Duty” questionnaire. This was offered in an
electronic format as well as on paper. The MANDATORY questionnaire asked employees if they
were tired, had taken medications and experiencing any mental health or physical symptoms
that might hinder their ability to drive. This may as well have been replaced with a single
question, “Do you want to go home today?” as no driver will answer it honestly. The purpose of
the questionnaire seems to be to absolve Voyago of any fault.
Health & Safety is quick to offer suggestions such as taking a break or get a good night’s sleep.
The ideas put forth by H&S ultimately put the onus on the driver to correct the fatigue issue.
Voyago on the other hand seems to want to have no responsibility in driver fatigue. One has to
wonder how management would prefer an 11-hour workday?
Incentive
The issue of employee absenteeism reached a point where the company introduced an
incentive program. There are two components to the program.
1) A weekly draw for $200 to all employees who work their scheduled shifts.
2) A small amount ranging from $40-$50 for employees who take on additional shifts.
The incentive program was met with some excitement from employees while many others felt
that it was a slap in the face. Employees working full time would have to take on additional
shifts to see bonus #2. The giveaway for bonus #1 also suggests that Voyago has a large amount
of petty cash that they can throw around which only reinforced that workers are underpaid.
If the company can afford to pay employees $50 for extra shifts, and $200 per week for a
random drawing, and taking into consideration they requested a 15.9% increase from LTC, why
can’t this company increase worker’s wages?
The only increase a worker can expect is an annual .50 increase which hardly covers the cost of
living.

“We offer a competitive hourly pay”

In the fall of 2023, Voyago introduced a new fleet of busses to the community. These are the
black and silver busses with the side door ramp instead of a rear lift. Nine of these vehicles were
brought into service. The hiring took place in the fall of 2023 with the starting wage at $18.05
This is another of those fly-on-the-wall conversations you wonder about.

LTC: So you’re introducing 9 more vehicles?

Voyago: Yes!
LTC: What sort of wage are you looking at?
Voyago: Oh $18.05
LTC: But that’s 85 cents above minimum wage and you’re now a $13 billion dollar company.
Voyago: Yes but it’s $42.55 per hour in our pockets.

Applying at Voyago

Consider that a McDonald’s worker earns $17.20. What incentive is there to work for 85 cents
more, or for $20.93 with a Class F licence? You’d be better off applying at Murphy’s Bus Lines
where they pay a living wage.

Alternative employers:
Hallcon ($18.50/hour – Class G License)
Badder Bus ($21.75 – Class CZ)
Langs ($20.30 – Strathroy, Woodstock, London)
Elgie Bus Lines ($20.30 – class G)
Newry Coach Lines ($19-$20)

Perks

These are the reasons Voyago provides as “The Perks” of working for them:

1) We support the development, work-life balance and well-being of our employees

This is somewhat true, there’s a certain work-life balance and employees may apply for internal
postings.
2) We build a supportive corporate culture that encourages diversity and enables our people to
flourish.

This is gibberish.
3) We enable our employees to have a positive social impact by deploying sustainable mobility
solutions.
Short way of saying that you’ll get to talk to elderly people.
4) We offer our employees opportunities to build their own experience within a local, global
Group.

Doesn’t every job offer experiences?

5) We offer comprehensive benefits packages for full time employees with an Employee and
Family Assistance Program, a great company perks program and an Employee Referral Bonus for
all staff.

Limited perks, benefits barely meet your needs

6) We are an Award Winning company

Nobody cares.
7) As a subsidiary of Transdev, we provide opportunities for a rewarding career with a growing,
global transportation provider

For a fraction of what other employers pay.

Other
According to Indeed, only 31% of people feel they are paid fairly at Voyago.

On December 19, 2019 the Amalgamated Transit Union Canada staged an information picket
outside of Voyago. An employee of Voyago was suspended for participating.
https://www.atucanada.ca/blog/voyago-drive-front-line-against-transit-privatization

Transdev’s 2023 Financial Report shows that turnover rate was 23%.

In conclusion, management should be embarrassed at offering these below-industry-pay

positions to Canada’s immigrants while billing out at almost 3x what they pay per hour.