Société de transport de Montréal: Difference between revisions

Société de transport de Montréal
Top: Lionel-Groulx metro station and 2010 STM logo. Prior to 2002, it was referred to as STCUM. Second row: Honoré-Beaugrand metro station, a 1996 NovaBus LFS "167 Le Casino" leaving the Montreal Biosphère and heading to the Casino de Montréal. Third row: Georges-Vanier metro station, Berri-UQAM metro station. Bottom: Montreal's first two mayors, Jacques Viger and Peter McGill, in stained glass in the McGill Station of the Montreal Metro.
Overview
Locale	Agglomeration of Montreal
Transit type	Bus, Rapid Transit, "Taxibus", Paratransit
Number of lines	197 bus routes + 23 night routes, 4 subway lines
Number of stations	68
Daily ridership	2,524,500 (avg. weekday 2011)
Chief executive	Yves Devin
Headquarters	800 rue de la Gauchetière Ouest Montreal QC H5A 1J6 Canada
Operation
Began operation	1861
Operator(s)	Société de transport de Montréal

The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) (Template:Lang-en) is a public transport agency that operates transit bus, and rapid transit services in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Established in 1861 as Montreal City Passenger Railway Company, it has grown to comprise four metro lines with a total of 68 stations, as well as over 186 bus routes and 23 night routes.

The STM operates the fourth most heavily used urban mass transit system in North America, after the New York City Transit Authority, Toronto Transit Commission and the Mexico City Metro. As of 2011, the average daily ridership is 2,524,500 passengers: 1,403,700 by bus, 1,111,700 by rapid transit and 9,200 by paratransit service.

The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) was created in 2002 to replace the Société de Transport de la Communauté Urbaine De Montréal (STCUM).

History

Old STM logo.

Several other public transport companies existed prior to the creation of the STM. From 1861 to 1886, the Montreal City Passenger Railway Company operated a small network of horse-drawn streetcars.

Then in 1886, the company changed its name to Montreal Street Railway Company. The first electric tram appeared in 1892 and was nicknamed the Rocket. The company underwent another name change in 1893: MSTR became the MTR for Montreal Island Beltline Railway. A year later, the network was fully electrified and in 1894, the last horse-drawn tram was taken out of service. From 1910 to 1911 the company was renamed Montreal Public Service Corporation before changing again to Montreal Tramways Company.

Although they were put into service in 1919, buses only began to be widely used starting in 1925, with the creation of several regular lines. Then in 1937, the first trolleybuses were used. In 1939, the company had 929 trams, 224 buses and 7 trolleybuses, serving about 200 million passengers per year. The replacement of tram lines by buses began in 1951, when a law was passed by the provincial government transfered the overall management of transport in Montreal to a public organization, the Commission de transport de Montréal (CTM). The last tram was withdrawn from service in 1959.

The metro was inaugurated in 1966 and the same year saw the end of the movement of trolley.

The CTM became the Commission de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal (CTCUM)in January 1970), and in 1985, rebranded itself again by becoming the Société de Transport de la Communauté Urbaine De Montréal (STCUM). Commuter trains ceased to be the manged by the STCUM in 1996 and responsibility for this service was transferred to the newly created Agence métropolitaine de transport.

It was not until 2002, at the time of the time of the merger of Montreal with other municipalities on the Island of Montreal that the Société de transport de Montreal was created, taking the place of the STCUM.

Past transit operators

Name	Abbreviation	Start Year	Finish Year	Remarks
Société de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal	STCUM	1985-06-20	2001-12-31	Conversion to a crown corporation
Commission de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal	CTCUM	1970-01-01	1985-06-19	Creation of the Montreal Urban Community
Commission de transport de Montréal	CTM	1951-06-16	1969-12-31	Municipal corporation formed to take over assets of MTC
Montreal Tramways Company	MTC	1911-03-24	1951-06-15	New company from merger from MSRC, Montreal Park & Island Railway Company, and Montreal Terminal Railway Company
Montreal Street Railway Company	MSRC	1886-06-21	1911-03-23	New name
Montreal Park and Island Railway	?	1893-12-27	1911	Transferred to Montreal Tramways
Montreal City Passenger Railway Company	MSR	1861-05-18	1886-06-20	Street railway service began 1861-11-27

Streetcars

Main article: Streetcars in Montreal

Tramway crossing under construction in 1893.

From 1861 to 1959, Montreal had an extensive streetcar system. The streetcar network had its beginnings with the horsecar era of the Montreal City Passenger Railway in 1861. That private company would become the Montreal Street Railway in 1886 and the Montreal Tramways Company in 1911. The assets of the company were taken over by the city-owned Montreal Transportation Commission in 1951.

Services

Fares

The STM accepts cash, tickets (for Students and Seniors), as well as daily, weekly, and monthly passes. When a ticket or cash fare is used, a free transfer can be used for trips in one direction that are completed within two hours. As of January 1, 2013 basic fares are shown below.

Fare	Full	Reduced (Students 6-17, Seniors 65+)
Single trip, cash	$3.00	$2.00
Weekly Pass	$23.75	$14.00
Monthly Pass	$77.00	$45.00 (Students 6-25)
Three-Day Pass	$18
One-Day Pass	$9

Except for cash, these and other fares are stored on an OPUS card. Children 5 years of age and younger, accompanied by an adult, travel for free.

OPUS

Main article: OPUS card

An OPUS card reader located at the Bonaventure Metro Station

File:Opuscard.png

Contactless smart card OPUS.

On April 21, 2008, the STM unveiled the contactless smart card called OPUS (a word that phonetically includes the French word puce, which is the generic French word for the chip used in any type smart card ) as a means of fare payment. In preparation for this new step in Montreal's public transportation network, turnstiles which incorporate the reader and automated vending machines had already been installed in metro stations; buses had previously been fitted with new fare boxes that incorporate the card reader, in order to ensure the uniformity of methods of payment across Montreal's transit network and that of its suburbs.

Costs to the STM related to the project were approximately $138 million, compared to the original estimated cost of some $100 million. The project was originally supposed to be implemented in 2006.

Schedules and route information

Route information can be accessed through a variety of methods:

• By telephone at 514-288-6287 (AUTOBUS on many telephone keypads);
• Online in several formats at STM.info;
• Via systems capable of making use of the General Transit Feed Specification such as Google Maps;
• Via SMS.

Each stop on each route is assigned a number and some of these systems require a user to know the number.

A MétroVision screen at Place-des-Arts station.

In 2014 the STM will introduce iBus, a real-time GPS tracking system. It will include electronic signs inside buses showing the estimated time of arrival at upcoming stops and the busiest bus stops will have electronic signs showing the estimated time of arrival of the next bus.

A handful of Metro stations are equipped with the MétroVision information screens which displays advertising, news headlines and weather information from RDI and MétéoMédia, as well as STM-specific information regarding service changes, service delays and information pertaining to using the system. By the end of 2013 the STM plans to have the screens in all 68 metro stations.

Accessibility

All 197 daytime bus routes and 23 night routes are wheelchair accessible. However only 1 out of the 4 metro lines is accessible to wheelchairs. The Orange line has 8 stations with elevators installed : Côte-Vertu, Lionel-Groulx, Bonaventure, Berri-UQAM, Henri-Bourassa, Cartier, De La Concorde, Montmorency.

Champ-de-Mars, Jean-Talon, and Snowdon stations are to have elevators installed beginning in 2013, and Vendôme, Mont-Royal in 2014.

Regional transit service

The STM was formerly involved in the operation of regional transit services. The first such service was a set of bus routes inherited from the October 1980 expropriation of a private bus company called Metropolitan Provincial (1967) Inc. These regional bus routes operated from downtown Montreal to the western part of the Island of Montreal, as well as to off-island points located west, south-west, and north east of the Island of Montreal. By the end of 1985, the STM (then known by the initials CTCUM) had exited the regional bus business to focus on its core territory (the Island of Montreal). Most of the regional bus routes were passed to private operators who provided services under contract to newly formed intermunicipal transit councils.

The second regional service involved the management of two commuter train lines. On July 1, 1982, the CTCUM and the Canadian National Railway (CN) entered into an agreement to integrate the Montreal-Deux Montagnes commuter train line into the regular CTCUM bus and metro network. The CTCUM paid CN to staff, run, and maintain the trains, while it set the fares and schedules. Passengers travelling within the CTCUM operating territory were able to transfer between the trains and the bus or metro, no fare supplement was required to make a bus/metro to train transfer . On October 1, 1982, a similar agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) went into effect and CP's Montreal-Rigaud commuter train line was integrated into the CTCUM network.

On January 1, 1996, responsibility for the commuter trains was transferred to the AMT, a Quebec provincial government agency formed to coordinate all public transportation in the metropolitan Montreal region.

Connections to other transit services

STM is connected to surrounding transit agencies such as:

• Société de transport de Laval (STL) — City of Laval
• Réseau de transport de Longueuil (RTL) — City of Longueuil
• Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) — provides commuter rail service to Dorion-Rigaud, Deux-Montagnes, Blainville–Saint-Jérôme, Mont Saint Hilaire and Delson-Candiac.
• A number of intermunicipal transit organizations known as Conseil Intermunicipale de Transport (CITs) which provide service to suburban and rural areas such as Châteauguay, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Saint-Hyacinthe, Sorel-Tracy, Repentigny, Terrebonne, and Saint-Jérôme.

Budget

The STM's budget has increased every year since 2000, when it was 620 million dollars. In 2012, the budget was 1.2 billion dollars. One reason for this increase is due to more maintenance being needed. Of this 1.2 billion dollars, 0.9% was dedicated to fixing old infrastructure.

The STM's budget comes from two sources: ticket fares and government funding. Because the STM needs more money as the years go by, ticket fares have been increasing. Since 1985, when the fare cost were 85 cents, the price gone up by 353%, but since 2006, the fares have only increases by 9%.

Security

The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal has a Unité métro (Metro Unit) that patrols Metro trains and stations. This unit has been in service since 2007.

Since the start of Metro service in 1966, the STM (and predecessors) has had its own transit safety force. STM Transit Safety Agents are not armed with a firearm but are provided with a baton and handcuffs.

Incidents

On May 10, 2012, smoke bombs were set off at Lionel-Groulx, Jean-Talon, Préfontaine, Fabre and Pie-IX stations, resulting in evacuations of the affected stations and a complete shutdown of the Montreal Metro for over two hours. The incident was not officially linked to the 2012 Quebec student strike.

Transit modes

Metro

Main article: Montreal Metro

Current map of the Montreal Metro

The Montreal Metro subway system was introduced in 1966 in preparation for the Canadian Centennial and Expo 67 World Fair in Montreal. Instead of traditional steel-wheeled trains, it is a rubber-tired metro, based on technology developed for the Paris Métro; Montreal's system was the first in the world to be entirely rubber-tired. The metro system is currently Canada's busiest subway system in total daily passenger usage, serving an average of 1,111,700 daily passengers on an average weekday. In 2010, 296.3 million riders (transfers not included) used the Metro. According to the STM website the metro system has transported over 7 billion passengers as of 2010, roughly equivalent to the world's population.

Montreal Metro Lines

Line Number	Colour	Termini
1	Green	Honoré-Beaugrand - Angrignon
2	Orange	Montmorency - Côte-Vertu
4	Yellow	Berri-UQAM - Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke
5	Blue	Saint-Michel - Snowdon

Bus services

Main article: List of Montreal Bus Routes

Inside an STM LFS Novabus Artic.

An STM LFS Novabus Artic bus on the 121 route.

The STM bus service operates well over 200 bus routes serving a number of different markets. These routes serve an average of 1,403,700 daily passengers each weekday.

• Local network routes, numbered 10-299, generally operate seven days per week, from 5:00 am to 1:00 am (Monday to Friday) and usually with a shorter span of service on weekends and holidays. Within this classification, some routes operate only at peak hours Monday through Friday, and sometimes only in peak directions. Others, numbered above 251, are specifically designed to serve the needs of senior citizens.
• All-night network routes, with route numbers from 300-399, generally operate from 1:00 am to 5:00 am, seven days per week with some only operating early on Saturday and Sunday ("late" on Friday and Saturday)
• Express Network routes, numbered 400-499, are limited-stop routes. Some routes are classified as Metrobus, and Trainbus and are geared to deliver peak-hour commuters to specific Metro and commuter train stations.
• Shuttle Network routes, numbered 700-799, are special-purpose routes serving Canadiens hockey games, tourist areas like Old Montreal and La Ronde, as well as an all-hours route between downtown and Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

On August 30, 2010, the STM introduced the 10 Minutes Max network. This "network", overlaid on both the local and express networks described above, schedules buses at a maximum headway of 10 minutes, between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., Monday to Friday, on the 31 of the STM's busiest bus routes. A few routes support that maximum headway only in the customary peak direction mornings and afternoons.

In early 2012, the STM announced a plan to convert its entire fleet of buses over to all-electric by 2025. Beginning in 2012, all STM bus purchases will be either hybrids or electrics and, starting in 2011, Montreal will begin testing trolleybuses (electric buses powered by overhead wires) on some of the city's busiest routes

Taxibus

The STM also operates ten taxibus lines where the creation of regular bus service is not feasible. Regular STM fares apply, except that no cash is accepted.

• Baie-d'Urfé, connecting to Baie-d'Urfé commuter railway station
• Stewart Hall, connecting to various locations in Pointe-Claire
• Île-des-Soeurs, connecting to Place du Commerce
• Lachine, connecting to Lachine commuter railway station
• L'Île-Bizard, connecting to bus route 407 Express Île-Bizard
• Norman, connecting Lachine's residential neighborhoods to the industrial area north of Highway 20
• Lachine Industrial Park, connecting to Dorval commuter railway station
• Phillips Avenue (Senneville), connecting to bus route 419 Express John Abbott
• Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Sainte-Marie district, connecting to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue commuter railway station
• Senneville, connecting to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue commuter railway station
• Montreal Technoparc, connecting to Sunnybrooke commuter railway station

Paratransit Service

The Société de Transport de Montréal operates a paratransit service for people with mobility problems. The lack of subway accessibility is critical for people whose mobility needs cannot be accommodated by stairs. STM's adapted transit is a system based on reservation, meaning that there is no room for flexibility. All trips must be booked at least one day in advance. Service began in April 1980. In first quarter, 2011, 9,200 trips were made through this service daily.

Current Vehicles

The STM operates over 1,800 buses in its fleet.

Current Société de transport de Montréal Vehicles
Photo	Manufacturer	Years	Model	Remarks	Fleet numbers
	Nova Bus	1995–1998	LFS First Generation	Exit from service 2012-2014. Cummins C8.3 Engine Cummins ISC Engine for later 1998 models. Luminator destination sign Gradually being replaced by the 3rd Generation LFS'	16-001 to 18-096
	Nova Bus	2001–2004	LFS Second Generation	Cummins ISC Engine Luminator destination sign (21-XXX series) Balios destination sign (22-XXX - 24-XXX)	21-202 to 24-307
	Nova Bus	2005–2009	LFS Second Generation	Cummins ISL Engine Axion destination sign	25-201 to 29-071
	Nova Bus	2008	LFS HEV	EP40 Hybrid System	28-701 to 28-708
	Nova Bus	2009–present	LFS Third Generation	Wider front door. Some units equipped with bike racks.	29-072 to 32-032
	Nova Bus	2009–present	LFS Artic	First ever articulated buses to run with the STM.	29-801 to 32-810
A 2008–present Ford E-Series STM bus used for the paratransit service. The original STM logo on a 2008-2010 Ford F-250. A STM Transit Safety vehicle, which is a Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. An STM cutaway vehicle, being a Ford E-350. The original STM logo and the Chevrolet Express van. An STM-owned Dodge Grand Caravan minus the logo. A Jeep Patriot having the original STM logo.

Infrastructure

Termini

Buses loading passengers at Terminus Côte-Vertu.

Most STM bus routes terminate at loops, side streets or metro stations.

Regional Termini

• Terminus Angrignon
• Terminus Côte-Vertu
• Terminus Dorval
• Terminus Fairview
• Terminus Henri-Bourassa Nord
• Terminus Henri-Bourassa Sud
• Terminus Honoré-Beaugrand
• Terminus Radisson

Other smaller STM loops/termini include

• Terminus Anjou
• Terminus Atwater
• Terminus Jolicoeur
• Terminus Lafleur-Newman
• Terminus MacDonald
• Terminus Sherbrooke/Gouin
• Terminus Vendôme
• Terminus 100th Avenue
• Beaubien Loop
• Crémazie Loop
• Laurier Loop
• Rosemont Loop
• Villa Maria Loop
• Du College Loop

Facilities

An MR-63 train in the Beaugrand Garage.

STM buses are operated out of a number of garages located around the city and metro trains are serviced several other facilities. The surface routes are divided into several divisions. Individual divisions have a superintendent, an on-duty mobile supervisor, a communications centre, and a garage facility tasked with managing the division's vehicle fleet and routes. Metro trains are stored in four garages and maintenance is carried out in three different facilities along the network.

Bus Garages
Anjou
Crémazie
Frontenac
LaSalle
Legendre
Mont-Royal
Stinson (2013)
St-Denis
St-Laurent
St-Michel (Paratransit)

Metro Train Garages
Angrignon
Beaugrand
Montmorency
Saint-Charles

Metro train maintenance facilities
Duvernay
Plateau d'Youville
Viau

Stops and shelters

There are 8,500 bus stops in the STM network. Each stop has a panel that indicates the number of routes that stops there, the type of service, if the bus goes to a metro or train station and the bus stop code enabling one to obtain the schedule by telephone at 514-AUTO-BUS. The STM is in the process of changing all its bus stop panels to a new modern pole that displays the route numbers. The route number is color-coded for the type of service it offers, dark blue is for regular routes, green is for express, metrobus and R-bus routes, black for night routes and gold for senior shuttles. Advertising is provided by CBS. On November 8, 2010 the STM launched 3 prototypes of modern bus shelters to replace the old ones. They will run on a solar power system and lights in the shelter are to be controlled by motion sensor.

• 
  A typical STM bus stop on the 119 Rockland route.
• 
  New STM bus shelters.

See also

• Montreal Expo Express

External links

• Société de transport de Montréal (STM) (English)
  • Route maps and schedules
  • History of Buses in Montreal
  • Choice of Maps
• Montreal by Metro