July 31 marks the first anniversary of the commissioning of the first five stations of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM). Despite a stormy inauguration and numerous breakdowns, this first year ends “under the sign of progress [et de] improvement,” estimates the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ).
The REM’s first months of service were marked by repeated technical problems that paralyzed the light rail between Brossard and Montreal’s Central Station. System failures, power grid failures and equipment breakdowns were the main reasons for these shutdowns.
“What we wanted from the REM operators was above all to respond better to outages, more quickly. And we can see that we are succeeding in doing that,” says Michelle Lamarche, Director of Media Relations and Digital Content. In one year, there were 65 service interruptions of more than 20 minutes. Most of the outages occurred in the first months after the REM opened. Since March, the number of service interruptions has significantly decreased, fluctuating between two and three outages per month.
This improvement was made possible by system updates, explains Mr.me Lamarche, however, acknowledges that there is still room for improvement. “Operators want to achieve a 99% availability rate. Right now, we’re at 98.96%.”
Sarah V. Doyon, Director General of Transport Québec, takes a positive look at the first year of this new means of public transportation. “The network is not perfect, but it is still very reliable, it has a wide range of hours, it runs frequently and people are there. So for us it is a success.”
The average REM ridership is 24,000 trips per day. Marc Erwan, a regular REM user, met Wednesday by The dutysays trains are usually empty during the day, but packed during rush hour. “As an improvement, maybe there could be slightly longer cars, as the REM is always full in the morning.”
Since April, REM trains have gone from four to two cars on weekends and holidays.
New lines still planned for 2025
In April, CDPQ Infra announced the postponement to 2025 of the Deux-Montagnes and Anse-à-l’Orme antennas, which were to be delivered in 2024. “It is still absolutely possible that the network will be completed and put into service sometime in 2025,” maintains Mr.me Lamarche. Various issues related to the tunnel under Mount Royal, including the discovery in 2020 of a century-old dynamite charge, have caused delays in the commissioning of the other REM antennas.
Richel Mantua, a McGill student who takes the REM daily, hopes the new lines will see the light of day soon. “I would really like them to open the station at McGill University soon, maybe that would reduce [de 25 %] my travel time, but realistically, I don’t hope to take the REM to McGill before the end of my studies,” says the student, who recalls that the opening of the first REM line had encountered numerous delays.
The CDPQ, however, states that the current work is progressing well. For several weeks, dynamic tests have been deployed from the Saint-Eustache maintenance centre to the Sainte-Dorothée station in Laval to test systems related to sensors, cars, stations and cameras, among other things.
“It’s going so well that we will be able to extend the dynamic tests during the month of August between Sainte-Dorothée and the Bois-Franc station, and subsequently for all segments of the West Island, from Anse-à-l’Orme to Bois-Franc,” assures Mr.me Lamarche.
The most important infrastructure work for the opening of the next REM lines has already been completed. Only dynamic tests and the installation of various technical tools, including cameras and 150 km of wires and cables, still had to be carried out before the completion of the work.
“They need to learn from this first year of operation and then not make the same kind of mess-up. [qu’à l’ouverture des premières branches] “, also hopes M.me Doyon. Once completed, the network will have 26 stations over 67 kilometres; a transformative project that, according to the director of Transport Québec, will have a major impact on mobility in the metropolitan region, particularly in the west of the city.