Replacement of the OPUS card | ARTM cancels another call for tenders

For the second time since 2022, the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) has had to cancel a huge call for tenders aimed at replacing its outdated OPUS ticketing system “as quickly as possible.” The project’s great complexity is being singled out by several potential suppliers, it has been learned The Press.

Launched last December, the call for tenders for the acquisition of a new “ticketing solution” aimed at “reducing the use of single-occupancy vehicles” was cancelled by the ARTM at the beginning of August. Documents obtained by The Press show that only three companies submitted bids: Toronto-based Accenture, French Spirtech and Italian Almaviva.

None of them would respect the ARTM budgetary framework. A new call for tenders will therefore have to be launched in the coming weeks.

“We know we are capable of getting a better price,” says Sylvain Perras, director of information technology at ARTM.

“We are in a difficult financing context [des services de transports en commun]and ultimately, it is taxpayers’ money that is at stake,” adds Mr. Perras.

The project to replace the ticketing system, dubbed Concerto, had been the subject of an initial call for prequalification in 2022, but this too had to be cancelled after no supplier was able to propose a system meeting all of the organisation’s requirements.

The ARTM is seeking to replace its outdated OPUS ticketing system, in place for around fifteen years, with a concept called “service mobility” (or mobility as a service). The idea is to replace the OPUS card with a single user account which will allow, with the same identifier or a bank card, access to a multitude of modes of transport in the metropolis, whether private or public.

This account would eventually become the gateway to all transportation networks in the 82 municipalities served by the ARTM – to reserve a Communauto car, rent a vehicle from a private lessor, borrow a BIXI, use a taxi and even pay for an incentive parking space.

High complexity

People involved in five companies that chose not to submit bids told The Press that the immense complexity of the project is at issue. The Press agreed to keep their identities secret, at their request, so as not to harm their companies’ future business relations with the ARTM.

“The project specifications include thousands of technical requirements that must be functional from day 1 of deployment. This creates a terrible integration nightmare, and at some point, it becomes expensive,” comments the manager of one of the companies that preferred to pass their turn.

“We are trying to mix services that have very different business models and that are not necessarily compatible. It takes a lot of time and energy. At some point, the costs exceed the benefits,” says another.

Another actor believes that the very concept of “mobility as a service”, which aims to integrate all transport services into the same ticketing system, does not clearly bring advantages for the user. “The idea, basically, is to eliminate the barriers that make people prefer to continue using solo cars. But having different accounts for each service is not necessarily a real problem for users. There is no demonstration that a fully integrated system can have an impact on users,” says this person.

Another says that the penalties for payment system failure, which can amount to up to one month of the fees that ARTM will pay to the supplier for system maintenance, constitute too high a business risk.

Despite these criticisms, the ARTM says it has no intention of reviewing its penalty mechanism or completely rewriting its call for tenders. Aside from “cosmetic changes,” the next call for tenders that will be launched “within two or three months” will be largely similar to the one it had to cancel.

Sylvain Perras believes that the complexity of the specifications of the call for tenders is not so great, since the integration of services such as those of BIXI or Communauto must not be done immediately. “These are peripheral elements,” he says, for which the ARTM is only seeking to develop “standards” that will allow their integration when the time comes.

However, some terms, such as the total duration of the maintenance contract and the deployment time of certain aspects of the project, could be revised upwards.

The priority, he assures, is to deploy a new ticketing system that will allow users to “work with their phone.”