"You are going to have damage to infrastructure, like on a roadway or a sidewalk," said City of Ottawa's Manager of Transportation Services John Manconi.

A specialized rail plow that was clearing snow off the tracks of the yet-to-be-completed Confederation Line damaged part of the LRT's critical train control system, but the City of Ottawa's Manager of Transportation Services is downplaying concerns about the seriousness of the damage.

The incident happened before a major winter storm hit the capital region on February 12. John Manconi said something went wrong while the plow was clearing the tracks, leading up to the storm, and it struck two transponders of the train control system (transponders keep track of where trains are on the line, and help prevent collisions).

"There's redundancies built into the system -- there's hundreds of [transponders] along the corridor," said Manconi. "I'm not worried about those two transponders -- you are going to have damage to infrastructure, like on a roadway or a sidewalk."

Manconi has admitted that OC Transpo has not been a reliable system, especially this winter, while the city waits for the LRT system to open to the public.

"Patience is running out. I get it," Manconi told Ottawa Today with Mark Sutcliffe on 1310 NEWS.

Listen to the full conversation:

He said he gets phone calls and e-mails, daily, from frustrated riders.

"When it's -35 C, I don't blame a customer for saying, 'Come on, this bus is 15 minutes late,'" added Manconi.

While it's not a magic cure-all, Manconi insists that reliability will dramatically improve once the LRT is completed and is in use.