Calgary Transit to review safety of natural gas buses

Calgary Transit said Friday it will review its compressed natural gas (CNG) bus operations to decide whether more safety measures are needed after a crash and fire in the city’s northeast killed three people, according to the Calgary Herald.

Updated Oct. 17, 2026. Police have not announced a cause.

The agency said all CNG buses go through regular inspections, maintenance and safety checks, and that it is working with investigators. It said it will share more information as it becomes available.

Calgary police said the Oct. 15 chain-reaction collision in the 800 block of Saddletowne Circle N.E. involved eight vehicles and two Calgary Transit buses, as we first reported. One bus struck the back of a second bus, and police said the CNG tanks on the second bus ignited, causing an explosion and a large fire. The three people who died were passengers on that second bus.

Police said it is too early to say whether impairment, speed or distraction played a role. Mayor Jeromy Farkas has committed to a full investigation.

Casualty figures have shifted. Early reports cited 10 injured, then 19. Global News later reported 16 injured, citing police. The first bus’s driver was trapped and has life-altering injuries, police said. Farkas said a Calgary police officer ran into the burning bus to save a child and is recovering at home, Global reported.

The size of the CNG fleet is also reported two ways. Global News cited Calgary Transit’s website as saying the agency has nearly 250 CNG buses, about 20 per cent of its fleet. The Herald, citing the City of Calgary, reported that 347 of the city’s 40-foot buses, or 44 per cent, run on CNG, a share the city expects to reach 399 buses, or half, next year. The figures may count different parts of the fleet, and neither outlet explained the gap.

Mike Mahar, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 583, told Global News it is unclear why the fire was so extreme, and that natural gas buses are generally safe. He told the Herald the crash should not have happened. “All the parts of this one lined up in the worst way,” Mahar said.

Nova Bus, the Quebec manufacturer that supplied the CNG fleet, declined an interview. Christos Kritsidimas, the company’s vice-president of legal affairs and external communications, said it is cooperating and that it would be “premature to speculate on the cause” before the investigation is complete, the Herald reported.

The city has promoted CNG as a cleaner alternative to diesel. It says CNG buses produce about 20 per cent less greenhouse gas and 95 per cent less nitrogen oxide, according to the Herald. Global reported that Calgary plans to buy 153 more natural gas buses this year to replace diesel units.

At the same time, Calgary is shifting toward electric buses. The Herald noted that the city announced in August 2025 it would buy 120 Nova LFSe+ electric buses, and that Ottawa announced a $325-million grant in June 2023 for 259 electric buses. The city aims to decarbonize its transit system by 2050.

Calgary Transit has pulled vehicles before as a precaution. After a shuttle bus fire on Nose Hill Drive N.W. in December 2025, it removed 19 shuttles of the same model series from service until they were confirmed safe, Global reported. No cause had been announced when that report was last updated on Jan. 23, 2026. That was a shuttle, not one of the 40-foot buses involved in the Oct. 15 crash.

None of the reports reviewed said whether any CNG buses have been taken out of service since the crash. Nor did they say what the review will examine, who will carry it out, or when its findings will be made public. Those answers will matter to riders, drivers and a city that has made CNG a core part of its fleet plan.

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Via Calgary Herald and Global News. Sourcing note: the Herald and Global figures on the CNG fleet differ and were not independently confirmed.