Admissions to Longueuil and Laval metro stations plummeted after this summer’s fare reform, shows data obtained by The Press. The rising cost of the passage is probably to blame, according to experts.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
The price of a subway ticket at these stations went from $3.50 to $5.25 on the 1er last July as part of the tariff reform of the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM).
The average number of daily admissions then fell by 16.2% compared to June at the four stations located off the island of Montreal. While an average of more than 32,000 entries were recorded in June at Cartier, De la Concorde, Montmorency and Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke stations, this number fell to less than 28,000 in July.
Rising fares “seem to be the most plausible cause” of the drop in ridership, according to Kevin Manaugh, a professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University, to whom The Press asked to comment on the data. “It was a substantial increase in price. Many people would likely find alternatives. »
No comparable decline in previous years
To rule out the possibility that this is just a seasonal effect, The Press compared June and July from previous years through 2019. There was no comparable drop in daily entries between June and July over this period.
In 2019, before the disruption caused by the pandemic, there was a drop in ridership of only 4.3% between June and July. In 2020, there was a significant increase in daily admissions, the average of which for these stations increased by 33.8% from June to July. This increase coincides with the relaxation of many health measures at the end of the first wave of COVID-19, including the authorization of private gatherings and the resumption of almost all economic sectors.
The month of June 2021 was also marked by the lifting of certain health restrictions, and there was a 3.4% increase in the average number of daily admissions in July compared to June.
For these two months in 2022, the only change in health measures was the lifting of the obligation to wear a mask on public transport on June 18.
“Other explanations [que la hausse du prix] are unlikely” to explain the drop in ridership, according to Professor Manaugh, for whom this effect was entirely predictable. “A big increase like this is likely to make a service much less desirable,” he notes.
Ugo Lachapelle, from the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), agrees. “Fares affect users (at least those who are not entirely dependent on public transit) and in this sense, we could expect this kind of situation,” he explains.
Another mobility expert from UQAM, Paulhiac Scherrer, however, believes that it is “difficult” to make such a comparison, since we are “still in a period of uncertainty” related to teleworking, in particular.
Several factors, according to the STM
For the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), “we must be careful before jumping to this type of conclusion, because there are several other factors that influence ridership” and “it is difficult to isolate the impact of each factor.
Spokesperson Amélie Régis submits that seasonality and other factors “such as the weather, which greatly influences discretionary travel, whether or not events are held, the pandemic and changes in behavior (e.g. telecommuting) can also explain certain variations.
She did not respond to questions from The Press concerning the predictability of a drop in ridership in the face of the increase in fares or possible remediation to seek out potentially lost users.
At the end of August, the ARTM announced that certain fares would be reviewed in October, including the passage to the Longueuil and Laval metro stations, after the increase had made many unhappy. The price of the passage will therefore increase from $5.25 to $4.50.