Reloading your OPUS card with a smartphone will soon be possible in the greater Montreal area. The Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) will test this functionality with 2,000 users until March, after which it should be made available to the entire population.
In recent days, the ARTM has invited users subscribed to its newsletter to test the OPUS mobile recharge system, which will work through the Chrono application. This “beta” phase will run from February 5 to March 3.
Such an experiment had already been done between September 14 and December 31, 2021, but with a different technological platform. The public notice from the time is still available on the Authority’s website, but three years later, mobile charging has never seen the light of day.
Nonetheless, everything indicates that this new phase of testing seems to be working. Some Internet users have reported in recent days that the system seemed to work well and that the tickets appeared quickly on the OPUS card.
By email, the Authority confirms that this test phase is carried out “with a restricted sample of nearly 2000 users”. “These tests will take place over a few weeks and will be gradually expanded, by invitation only. Following conclusive tests, the functionality will be made available to the entire population of the metropolitan region,” notes the spokesperson, Isabelle Brisson-Urdaneta, on this subject.
There could, however, be a certain transition period between the end of the tests and the opening to the general public, which remains to date planned “at the end of the first quarter of 2024”, i.e. at the end of March. According to our information, OPUS mobile top-up should be available at the beginning of April at the latest.
Vast digital reform
All this is part of the vast digital transformation underway at the ARTM, which should culminate in 2027. This project will ultimately unify different transport services and make it possible to pay with a telephone or credit card by 2025 or 2026 .
By 2027, a “multi-mode” system would be deployed, possibly by means of a mobile application bringing together the metro, the bus, the REM, car sharing, bike sharing, taxi, carpooling or even electric scooters. Coach systems could also be integrated, as could public and private parking managers, and even railway companies.
According to the ARTM, ridership could explode due to the combination of numerous modes of transport, with 155 million cumulative trips within 12 years, in addition to $364 million in financial benefits in the same interval. All of this would, however, most likely involve getting rid of OPUS, a system that has become obsolete in terms of technological innovation.
End of August, The Press revealed that this transformation would cost 144 million, with a budget for contingencies of 18.5 million, for a total of 162 million. The ARTM estimates that these investments would bring in 364 million in benefits by 2035, in addition to exploding the number of trips.