The managers of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) admit it: user confidence is weakened and it will have to be “regained”. With the arrival of winter, which is likely to bring its share of challenges, communication with the public will be completely revised. Within a few weeks, text messages will be sent to users in the event of a breakdown.
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress, especially this week. We feel that we have an improvement, but […] we have to regain people’s trust,” agreed the senior vice-president of major projects and engineering services at AtkinsRéalis, Marc Boucher, at a press conference on Friday.
He was accompanied by the president and CEO of CDPQ Infra, Jean-Marc Arbaud, and the head of services and operations in North America at Alstom, Jennifer Guillette. The three organizations together form the “REM consortium”, which is responsible for the day-to-day operation of light rail.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
From left to right: Jean-Marc Arbaud, President and CEO of CDPQ Infra, Jennifer Guillette, Head of Services and Operations in North America at Alstom, and Marc Boucher, Senior Vice President of Major Projects and Services AtkinsRealis engineering
This all comes as this Friday, an “exceptional interruption” of REM service occurred during rush hour, at 9 a.m.
CDPQ Infra maintains that the light train had to cease its service “at the request of the Samuel-De Champlain Bridge teams to allow them to clear snow from the bridge pylons.” An inspection of the track then had to be carried out before reopening, which took place around 9:45 a.m.
According to Mr. Arbaud, the communication from the Samuel-De Champlain bridge teams “was probably made too late for us to be able to give the information with advance notice” to users. He affirms that the REM and the Signature Group on the Saint-Laurent, manager of the bridge, will have to “learn to work together” to correct the situation.
Text messages to better inform
Until now, it is mainly communication to users during outages that still poses a problem, says Jean-Marc Arbaud. According to him, the frequency of the service remains intact “98% of the time”, with around twenty events having interrupted the service for more than 20 minutes. CDPQ Infra aims to exceed 99% system availability in the short term.
That said, “people need to be able to plan better, because it’s reassuring to know quickly when there is a problem,” says Mr. Arbaud.
CDPQ Infra will launch within “a few weeks” a text message service to inform users who wish to do so of breakdowns and technical problems. “I am confident that it is a tool that people will appreciate,” said Mr. Arbaud.
More generally, messages in the station and on the train during interruptions will also be “revised”, promised Mr. Boucher. The latter maintains that the “experience” of employees at the REM control center, who are responsible for making the decision whether or not to trigger backup plans during interruptions, “will improve over time.” According to him, “this decision should sometimes be taken more quickly”.
REM managers finally intend to increase the number of platforms where breakdown messages will be broadcast in the coming weeks. For the moment, these notices are only published on the rem.info site and on the social network X.
Ready for winter?
On Monday, the REM also experienced setbacks alongside the first snowfall of the season. In addition to a slowdown which would be due to an early stopping of trains at the station, several technical problems affected the service during the morning rush hour, to the great dismay of users.
The cause: the landing doors which did not open since they were not in the right place, before or after the spaces provided for disembarking passengers. Users were then taken to the next station. “We’re going to adjust to make sure it’s really accurate,” said M.me Guillette on this subject on Friday, apologizing to the users who were affected.
The manager, however, assures that the REM cars “were designed, manufactured and tested for the extreme conditions” of the Quebec winter. The catenaries and train anchors, for example, are precisely sized to resist the weight of snow and ice, but also the force of the wind.
“We are ready for winter, both in normal times and in degraded operations. We have emergency plans that are ready,” insisted Marc Boucher. “That said, we are learning, gaining maturity and experience. We understood what we did less well,” he concluded.