The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) would “still have financial challenges” if ridership returned to 100% of the pre-pandemic level, admits its general manager. Until there is a clear plan from Quebec, his group is currently working on the development of “recurring avenues” for reducing expenses.
“We talk a lot about traffic, customer revenue. Yes, we lost customer revenue during the pandemic, but even if we had 100% of customers right now, I would still have financial issues balancing the budget. It is really the funding model that no longer responds: expenses are growing faster than revenues, ”said Marie-Claude Léonard on Tuesday, as she answered questions from elected officials of the municipal council in plenary.
In 2024, to be able to “deliver the same service offer” as in 2023, Mme Léonard affirms that it will need “the support of all partners”, as ridership returns to normal in the public transit networks.
PHOTO ARCHIVES PRESS
Marie-Claude Léonard, Director General of the STM
What’s more, many issues, including major maintenance of the AZUR trains, will necessarily accentuate the needs. “It will put pressure in future years and we will ask for more money in future years”, clearly recognizes the manager.
Fewer recurring expenses?
Nevertheless, while awaiting the five-year financing plan for public transit, which Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault should in theory unveil this fall, the STM is already claiming to take certain steps to reduce its so-called “recurring” and frequent expenses. .
Last February, the STM had already announced a vast “non-recurring expenditure reduction plan” of approximately 18 million to reduce its budget hole. “But we really have a plan that we are working on to come up with announcements and be able to have recurring avenues for reducing expenses,” said M.me Leonardo.
Several of these “recurring tracks” are being analyzed, but will be done on “slightly longer cycles” to properly absorb their implementation, she argued.
By the fall, his group also plans to unveil “new families of services” through the bus network, in particular. “We are going to come and characterize our service offer so that it is easy to understand, and that we demonstrate how frequent our bus offer is on our major major axes. There will surely be announcements to be made for September, ”still insisted the DG.
To date, the company is still trailing a shortfall of approximately 23 million, which will however be borne by the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM). Starting this fall, approximately 75 STM bus lines will indeed benefit from service improvements. Generally speaking, the network will have a service increase of approximately 3% compared to fall 2022. Service in the métro, however, will remain unchanged; instead, about 60 additional security and cleaning resources will be added, a measure that is expected to cost about $5 million, Ms.me Leonardo Tuesday.