CASCIATO, Leonard, BA, MA, P.Eng, - August 7, 1925 - June 3, 2020
Final stop for Canada's traffic and public transport pioneer.
The engineering whiz kid whose technological innovation created computer-controlled traffic systems and revolutionized public transport in Canada and across the world came to his final stop in a Kitchener care home on Wednesday, June 3, 2020.
Leonard P. Casciato helped design and build Canada's first computer between 1948-1950, while he was a student at the University of Toronto.
A decade later, he designed and installed the first electronically controlled traffic system in the world in Toronto in 1962, and in the 1970s began the electronic revolution at the Toronto Transit Commission that now allows it to safely whisk millions of commuters to work every day.
His string of patents and work informed everything from the use of early cellular communications to track vehicles to the free-flowing movement of traffic in cities, automated reservations for airlines as well as inventory, accounting systems and automated production lines.
He was predeceased by his wife Loretta (nee Carey) and leaves behind four children: John, Paul, Mary-Ellen and Anne Marie; seven grandchildren: Adam, Christopher, Lauren, Jack, Max, Michael and Colleen; three step-grandchildren: Chris, Devin and Kelton; and three of his four siblings: Evelyn Fontana (nee Casciato), Joe Blondin and Anthony Casciato.
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