Contactless bus fares: a pilot project

This Daily Hive article clarifies a few things about the contactless bus fare payment meant to start soon.

It’s a pilot project meant to last till the end of the year.

You have to use either the Transit or the Chrono app on your phone.

The payment of $3.50 allows access to all the ARTM’s buses for 2 hours, which presumably means all the bus services on this map. However, if you’re staying within the STM, a block of 10 trips bought on an Opus card costs $29, so it’s slightly cheaper per trip. (This goes up to $29.50 on October 1, when a few fare increases come into effect.)

Shoe dropped: another drawback (mentioned in the graphic shown on the Daily Hive piece) is that the $3.50 ticket doesn’t allow transferring, so if you need two buses to get where you’re going it will cost you $7.00 and so on.