International data shows that the Montreal subway has the most customer-caused service interruptions in the world. These once again underline the importance of a future screen door system, which is still on hold.
Published at 7:30 p.m.
Almost 52% of outages on the Montreal Metro are actually caused by passengers or employees. This emerges from a document assessing the “performance in the international context” of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), dated February 13, obtained in accordance with the law on access to documents held by public bodies.
The average of the member metropolises of the COMET group, consisting of 45 metropolises in 41 cities, is significantly lower at 27%. In Europe and North America alone this figure is 40%.
Among comparable metropolises worldwide, the transport company is one of the few that does not have a platform screen door system. “We are an endangered species,” explains Simon Carreau, corporate government relations consultant for the airline, in an interview.
We know that everyone wants elevator landing doors. But it's a question of prioritization. We must first ensure that the existing infrastructure is in good condition.
Simon Carreau, government relations management consultant at STM
Mr Carreau regrets that the amounts earmarked for asset conservation have “decreased by 20% over five years of government”. “We’re not going in the right direction toward the landing doors,” Mr. Carreau said.
According to him, the vast majority of metros with such a system “implemented it from the beginning”, similar to the Réseau express métropolitain (REM). “Installing on an existing network requires a lot more work and resources,” he notes.
An immediate effect
Officially, the idea of equipping the Montreal subway with screen doors was suspended in 2022 due to the difficult financial situation of transport companies. Quebec had promised around 200 million to carry out this project.
However, in its most recent budget, the STM has earmarked an amount of 5 million “for the study of the project around 2032” to take into account the estimated recovery in ridership and future major projects such as the extension of the blue line to Anjou and the Eastern Structuring Project (PSE).
According to Patrick Hamelin, STM's director of planning, bus and subway operations, a system of platform screen doors would likely reduce the number of user-related failures from 52% “to around 30%.”
“We could almost halve the number of customer incidents and actually have a significant impact. “All of our longest-running incidents, like attempted violent killings, tunnel collapses, would drastically decrease,” he claims.
To date, the overall reliability of the subway is quite respectable. The STM is currently in 16th place out of around thirty subways evaluated in terms of the proportion of subway journeys that are completed without delay, i.e. in five minutes or less.
In North America alone, the Montreal company ranks second on this list. “We suspect that among us there are mainly systems with landing doors,” notes Mr. Carreau.
The urgency of replacing the MR-73
Of the total 40 subways analyzed, Montreal's also ranks 22nd in terms of rolling stock reliability, that is, the average distance traveled between each breakdown. Since 2020, equipment reliability has declined, largely due to the aging of the MR-73 trains.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Subway car MR-73 is undergoing maintenance
These can be driven for an average of 150,000 kilometers before a major breakdown occurs. The new Azur trains, for their part, travel up to 1.5 million kilometers.
In short, time is running out, especially since the MR-73 trains will reach the end of their useful life in 2036. “We call on the government to initiate the studies. The bell has rung and we must start this project,” says the general director of the STM, Marie-Claude Léonard.
His group estimates the replacement project for these trains at just 2.9 billion for the purchase of new Azur trains.
Another billion should also be made available for replacing equipment in workshops and in the train control system.
Meanwhile, the bus network “will be particularly reliant on punctuality in the short term,” says Ms Léonard. According to the documents, a Montreal bus arrives on time 81.4% of the time. A bus covers an average of 17 to 18 kilometers per hour of operation, which corresponds to a good 7th place out of 16 comparable companies.
However, this value has been steadily declining since 2014, increasing operating costs. Ultimately, a return to commercial speeds to 2014 levels would even allow savings of 22.5 million, according to the company, which bets on multiplying the lanes reserved for buses to get as close as possible.
With William Leclerc, La Presse