Nine months after abandoning its “10-minute max” routes, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is returning to its thirty routes that are still considered frequent. About 2,500 stops will now be marked in purple, certifying to users that they will have to wait no more than 12 minutes. A task that seems very unrealistic from the drivers’ union’s point of view.
Posted at 12:49 p.m.
“We offer today’s solutions to today’s challenges. […] We really want to reduce the frequency,” argued STM President Éric Alan Caldwell at a press conference on Monday.
According to him, the promise of “a maximum of 10 minutes”, abandoned in January in view of a budget deficit, simply “no longer corresponded to the range of services on offer”, but above all “it was a bit rigid for us to make this possible”. We are where customers need us.”
“We could no longer keep this promise,” said Alain Labelle, Head of STM Service Planning, more clearly.
Before the pandemic, 31 bus routes were part of the STM’s high-frequency “maximum 10 minutes” network. This number then fell to eight bus routes before being abandoned in early 2023.
These 31 routes will now be identified as “frequent” through a display on the bus and at the street stop, with the visual identity entirely in purple. The purple color, introduced from this Monday, essentially means a wait of 2 to 12 minutes for passage, “with a bus typically leaving in less than 10 minutes,” Mr Caldwell claims.
Still unsure about the future
The STM’s goal is to “gradually” increase the number of these frequent lines, but everything will depend on government support. Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault must present this autumn a crucial plan for the future to finance public transport over a period of five years.
I don’t have the means to provide service. At the moment, we at STM are taking precautions to optimize our network with the resources available to us.
Éric Alan Caldwell, President of the STM
The range of services remains that confirmed at the end of August, i.e. 95% of the pre-pandemic level. Most of the frequency increase this fall occurred on 75 bus routes, representing an overall increase of around 3%.
Setting the maximum at 12 minutes instead of 10 is no coincidence. “On the contrary, it has been proven in the literature that 12 minutes is the service interval in which no questions are asked,” explained Mr. Labelle in this regard. To date, the pre-pandemic ridership threshold is about 78% on the bus and 77% on the subway. However, in the evenings and on weekends, passenger occupancy is on average almost 100%.
“Not available,” says the union
According to the president of the bus drivers’ union STM, Frédéric Therrien, 31 routes with a maximum service of 12 minutes are “currently not available.” “Between 160 and 170 drivers were missing this morning alone. “That would mean we would need up to 200 more drivers every day,” he says.
If they enforce all the deadlines on their frequently used lines, it will inevitably have an impact on other routes, that’s for sure. That is our fear.
Frédéric Therrien, President of the STM Bus Drivers Union
Given the lack of available funds, the STM “will inevitably have to further reduce our schedules and workload,” fears Mr Therrien. “This is not good news for us when we know that 40% of our members are on sick leave for psychological reasons, i.e. burnout or stress. We have less and less time for our work. »
At Trajectoire Québec, general manager Sarah V. Doyon welcomed “good news from a communications perspective” on Monday. “We will then observe whether there will be more frequent lines in the coming years. It will also be necessary that the 12 minutes are maintained so that we do not expand the definition of frequent scheduled services to 16 minutes after three years,” she concludes.
“Purple” or frequent lines
Nine tours throughout the day, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., in both directions
- 18 Beaubien
- 24 Sherbrooke
- 51 Edouard Montpetit
- 67 Saint Michel
- 105 Sherbrooke
- 121 Sauvé / Côte Vertu
- 141 Jean Talon
- 165 Côte des Neiges
- 439 Express Pie-IX
22 laps towards the summit, from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. or from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
- 32 Lacordaire
- 33 Langelier
- 44 Armand Bombardier
- 45 Papineau
- 48 Perras
- 49 Maurice Duplessis
- 55 Saint Laurent Boulevard
- 64 Garnet
- 69 gouins
- 80 Avenue du Parc
- 90 Saint Jacques
- 97 Avenue du Mont Royal
- 103 Monkland
- 136 Viau
- 161 Van Horne
- 171 Henri Bourassa
- 187 René-Lévesque
- 193 Jarry
- 196 Parc-Industriel-Lachine
- 197 Rosemont
- 406 Express Newman
- 470 Express Pierrefonds