Ideas in motion: STM publishes 2019 Annual Report

Press release

The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) has published its 2019 Annual Report, with the theme of “Ideas in motion,” in reference to its many major projects transforming the city and its networks.

“Thanks to investments of nearly $1B, we have not only provided transportation to millions of people but also contributed to transforming the city through multiple projects, with the goal of building a network that is increasingly accessible, reliable, green, extensive and worthy of a major city in the 21st century,” says Philippe Schnobb, Chair of the STM Board of Directors.

Projects in motion

Among the year’s most significant projects, the report highlights the progress made on the STM’s five solutions for bringing on 300 new hybrid and electric buses, 33 of which were delivered in 2019. This included opening the Stinson 2 garage, which holds 50 buses, refurbishing the roof of the Saint-Denis bus garage, beginning expansion work on three other bus garages and beginning construction of the Bellechasse bus garage. The STM also acquired land in the eastern part of the city, where a tenth garage can be built later.

The STM also completed the preliminary steps of the Blue line métro extension project. These included conducting surveying work and geotechnical testing, beginning the expropriation process and awarding architectural contracts for the design of future stations.

Métro ridership up, incidents down

Another of the report’s important highlights was the métro network’s steady growth in ridership over the last several years. The métro has reached the milestone of one million boardings per average weekday. The STM recorded a total of 283.5 million boardings in 2019, an increase of 4.5% compared to 2018.

Despite the rise in ridership, the number of incidents of five minutes or more has dropped considerably, from 12.1 incidents per million kilometres in 2018, down to 10.6 in 2019. The world average is roughly 20 incidents per million kilometres. The STM owes its excellent results in large part to the reliability of the AZUR rolling stock, but also to the success of awareness campaigns about service disruptions caused by passengers and the deployment of STM transit support personnel on métro platforms.

Buses in improvement mode

The STM celebrated 100 years of buses in Montréal in 2019 and began implementing a series of measures to increase bus maintenance capacity. These involved starting work on the Pie-IX and Sauvé/Côte-Vertu BRTs, implementing 13 reserved lanes on Papineau Avenue and other streets as part of Mouvement orange, making service improvements to bus lines 480, 465, 26, 496 and 25, as well as adding winter shared taxibus services to Rivière-des-Prairies and Parc Jean-Drapeau.

The bus fleet also moved closer to electrification when the STM received the first of its 30 new long-range (slow-charging) electric buses, manufactured by New Flyer. The other 29 are to be delivered in summer 2020.

Paratransit growth continues

After several years of steady growth, Transport adapté moved forward with EXTRA Connecte in 2019, a solution that gives customers the option to be notified of their vehicle’s imminent arrival by phone, text or email. The STM can now track paratransit vehicles’ exact locations at all times, allowing us to optimize trip reservations for better customer service.

Ridership

Overall STM ridership rose for the third consecutive year in 2019. The total number of STM network trips reached 374.9 million, up 2.6% from 2018 and 8.8% from 2016, due in large part to service enhancements and a robust economy.

Annual Report (in French only) also including rapport 2019 du Plan stratégique organisationnel 2025, rapport d'informations financières 2019, rapport 2019 du Plan de développement durable 2025, rapport 2019 du Plan d'accès à l'égalité en emploi 2020 et rapport 2019 du Plan de développement d'accessibilité universelle 2020: http://www.stm.info/fr/a-propos/informations-entreprise-et-financieres/rapport-annuel-2019