Four years till new transit payment system?
La Presse reported Thursday morning that the ARTM admitted it would take four years to update its fare collection system to accept phones and credit cards in payment. Immediately, transport minister Geneviève Guilbault kicked, saying it has to happen faster.
Also mentioned in that second piece is a promise for better wayfinding from Bonaventure metro station to the REM, after reports that a Concordia graphic design student had put up improvised signs to serve the purpose.
Orr 13:15 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
ARTM: Is that a French acronym for underachiever and proud of it?
Kate 15:39 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
The question would be: does the ARTM have the budget to make this upgrade? Does Guilbault know whether they do, and if they don’t, does she have the power to hand over enough money to do it in the time frame she’d like to see?
DisgruntledGoat 15:42 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
I know not everyone is the biggest fan of the REM being imposed on the city by CDPQ Infra.
However when you look at the dumpster fire that is the ARTM it’s kind of a small miracle ♂️
Kate 16:37 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
The ARTM is a relatively recent entity (since 2017) and it is, like everything else here, a creature of the provincial government. So any strife between the ARTM and CDPQ Infra is purely a Quebec thing – it’s not the doing of Montreal or Montrealers.
Spi 16:48 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
That’s being generous, it’s essentially staffed by the same people that were at the AMT before it was split into EXO/ARTM. When the ARTM decided to come out against off the REM-Est, I said that they better come out with an even better project (which they didn’t) or else they’d all be unemployed by the end of 2024. I stand by that, especially since the CAQ plans to create a new agency to manage large transportation projects and the transport providers don’t like working with l’ARTM.
DisgruntledGoat 16:48 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
Completely in agreement. We are held hostage by the rest of the province on a lot of topics, unfortunately.
DeWolf 18:36 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
As Spi says, the fact that the STM and other agencies that actually provide public transport hate the ARTM says a lot about what a dysfunctional entity it is.
PO 22:34 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
It’s going to take four years because instead of paying for and implementing an already existing, off the shelf, well tested and highly effective system that already exists in dozens of other major cities, they’re going to create their own convoluted system in-house that will have half the functionality, four times the cost and only work under specific and limited circumstances. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Joey 09:26 on 2023-09-01 Permalink
Some of the more interesting parts of the project will be completed sooner, but this whole enterprise was doomed when “you need to be able to book a Téo Taxi with your Opus card” was considered essential. We don’t need one app to rule them all – just a way to get on transit with our phones.