After four technical incidents in four days, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) must improve quickly, demands the Legault government. The light rail manager concedes that several “problems” must be resolved.
“To cause a modal shift, our public transport networks must work. The problems encountered over the past 6 months must be taken seriously and we must ensure that users are well informed,” the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, insisted on Monday.
According to her, “it is imperative that the system improves” in the coming days, in order to restore users’ confidence in its reliability. His ministry will also liaise with CDPQ Infra and the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) to ensure this.
Mme Guilbault was reacting to a radio tour carried out by the president and CEO of CDPQ Infra, Jean-Marc Arbaud, in the morning, in the wake of four technical incidents that occurred in four days last week. The most recent occurred on Saturday, due to ice breaking on the Samuel-De Champlain Bridge, and affected service for more than two hours. The other three, however, came from systems issues, most often IT.
Long outages as we have seen […] it should be close to zero. We shouldn’t have any. And we are absolutely not satisfied with it.
Jean-Marc Arbaud, president of CDPQ Infra, on Radio-Canada
According to him, the REM situation has been “difficult since the return of January”. “This week is a bad combination of circumstances. We had 4 issues in 4 days. This in no way excuses the situation and we are fully aware of the inconvenience this causes to users,” he said.
Issues identified
Mr. Arbaud affirms that three issues must be resolved quickly, in conjunction with the REM suppliers, namely AtkinsRéalis and Alstom. First, he cites the operation of the landing doors sometimes “delayed” by poor maneuvers, as was the case last Thursday. According to him, it is “poor cleaning” which is the cause, with gravel having settled in a slide of the landing door.
In his eyes, the level of training of the staff could also play a large part in the length of the breakdowns, with some employees “not yet having sufficient experience with the REM system”.
“We have already said it, but we also have issues with communication with the public. We need to communicate better. There were events during the week where communication was far from perfect,” added Mr. Arbaud, who also criticizes the ARTM for the ineffectiveness of the succession plans, namely these buses from the Longueuil transport network. (RTL) which transport users in the event of a breakdown.
All this occurs while the first trains should run on the northern part of the REM starting in the spring, in March or April. Delivery of the light train is still planned for the end of 2024, but a more precise timetable will be provided when formal tests are launched this summer.
As for noise from the REM, the work is still not finished. Acoustic grinding, i.e. polishing on the rails to reduce the noise of friction with the rails, has been completed. But the dynamic absorbers, designed to reduce the propagation of vibrations on the rails, are installed “at 85%”, according to Mr. Arbaud.
The rest will have to wait until spring, he said. “That said, I think we can see that the measures we have taken have had an excellent impact on noise and noise pollution. »
Furthermore, the shortcut that would allow thousands of travelers to save transfer time between the metro and the REM in downtown Montreal should open soon, the manager confirmed to 98.5. “It’s not our responsibility. The issue was between Kevric and Cominar to use it in both directions. There is a safety study that should be finished and in the coming weeks, we will be able to open. »