2018 STM budget: work continues toward excellence in mobility

Montréal, January 10, 2018 – The Mayor of Montréal, Ms. Valérie Plante, and the Chair of the Board of Directors of Société de transport de Montréal, Mr. Philippe Schnobb, today released the 2018 budget of the STM, which totals $1.4 billion and presents a series of initiatives with the aim of improving experience.

This budget also marks an acceleration in achieving the commitment of the 2025 Organizational Strategic Plan, while limiting the increase in current expenditures to only 1.9%.

The improvement of client experience is an objective shared by Montréal, which is increasing the municipal contribution to public transit by $27.7 million. The Montréal contribution, like that of all municipalities in the region, will be paid to the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), which allocates it among the transit corporations in its territory. Concretely, in Montréal, the STM will invest $22.4 million in service improvement and the deployment of concrete measures.

 “My administration puts Montrealers’ mobility at the centre of its priorities. This is why I want to give the STM the necessary resources to achieve this goal. After yesterday’s announcement on the call for tenders issued for 300 additional buses by 2020, today we are making another firm commitment to public transit users for better bus and métro services,” affirmed the Mayor of Montréal, Valérie Plante.

“Excellence in mobility continues to be our ultimate objective and this year’s budget goes in this direction. In addition, the significant acceleration in achieving the targets set in our 2025 Organizational Strategy Plan proves to us that we are on the right track! All this allows the STM to view the future with confidence and continue the work already under way to improve our clientele’s mobility experience. This is why this is a rigorous and solid budget that puts the customer at the centre of our priorities and favours the deployment of concrete measures in this sense,” said Philippe Schnobb, Chair of the Board of Directors of the STM.

Improvement of métro service 
Thus, the STM will increase métro service by 3.4% thanks to the addition of 3 million km travelled to reach 88.1 million km. Concretely, among other improvements this will translate into service every 5 minutes on weekday evenings up to 10:30 p.m. on all lines, and from 3 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on weekends for the Green, Orange and Yellow lines.

Improvement of bus service
81,000 hours of bus service will be added, for a total of 5.3 million hours. Certain sectors will benefit from special attention, such as Rivière-des-Prairies - Pointe-aux-Trembles and Griffintown. 

For paratransit, the STM will serve the clientele by supporting the projected growth to 3.25% of trips, for a total of 4.1 million trips.

Other measures to improve customer experience 
Other measures intended to improve customer experience include:

• commissioning of 18 AZUR trains for a total of 52 trains, each with an additional capacity of 8%;
• replacement  of 100 diesel buses with new air conditioned hybrid buses;
• installation of 217 additional new bus shelters, increasing the number to 1331 new bus shelters, 120 of them interactive;
• addition of nine stations connected to the cell phone network on the Orange and Blue lines, for an increase to 50 stations;
• commissioning of elevators at the du Collège and Honoré-Beaugrand stations;
• deployment of EXTRA in paratransit to provide information to the customers in real time.

In addition, since September 1, 2017, an expansion of the reduced rate to students age 26 and over is in force, and fares remain unchanged since July 1, 2016.

To view the 2018 STM budget

http://www.stm.info/sites/default/files/pdf/fr/budget2018.pdf

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Renseignements :
Isabelle Alice Tremblay
Conseillère corporative – affaires publiques
Société de transport de Montréal
Tél. : 514 350-0800, poste 84940