eclair14

The city of Levis has announced a new reduced fare program (pilot project) for low income population. The 25 or so participating non profit organization in this program will be able to either offer free 4 tickets card or a significantly discounted 12 tickets card (16$ instead of 38$) to their customers up to a maximum of 185 000$ a year.

RTC holded a press conference this morning, here what we learned... - Ridership is expected to go up 4.3% next year, however those number are to be taken with a truckload of salt since i must remember we learned a couple weeks ago that method to measure ridership for the last decade was kybosh. - Budget for 2020 is 238.5 millions roupies dollar, a rise of 3.5% from 2019 - In 2020, the north of Beauport will be the subject of routes changes and improvement. Two improvement that could happen is the extension of Metrobus 802 and an all-day service on the 59 route. Also the bus network in the east part of Limoilou could see some changes with the building of the new super hospital east of H-Bourassa

Well like a plane crash, there is not a single point of failure but rather many factors IMO that causes the actual situation. - CT Saint-Denis temporary closure: That has an impact since that removes many lifts required to do maintenance on those buses. Also all SD buses went elsewhere in the meantime, however the others Garage might not be able to catch up with the extra works those buses bring to them. Also the 3 garages currently under extension (AN, SL, LE) removes some of the capacity. One garage that was hit hard was Stinston with the temporary "Stinston 2" garage, that added 50 buses to the maintenance duty of that garage). - New computer system: Not a big impact, yes there was headline of mechanics counting the rivets holding the roof since the new system was not able to furnish them with the parts they need to repair buses. However, the crisis has begun way before the new system was in place (Oct. 21 2019) - Novabus "recalls", based on what STM says, they have transferred up to 50 000 hours of work to Novabus for "recalls" to improve mid and long term longevity of the buses. This is a rather questionable issue, as far as we know those "recalls" are not urgent safety recalls that requires immediate action, so why send buses to Nova to do "recalls" taking off the line buses in working conditions. They should suspend this program until they can control the number of buses available then when they hit the target, restart the program. - New work contract: THIS is the biggest factor in the current crisis, let's remember that STM and the Union were at "war" late 2018/ early 2019 during the negotiation of their new agreement. STM relied heavily on overtime to get the job done, and they did not have a choice at that time since the convention would not allow nights and week-ends shifts, and you cannot hire mechanics during the dayshift since you might not have enough lifts to hoist buses, Union went to overtime boycott, the mechanics could not catch up to the pile of dead buses, and you have the beginning of a crisis. Now with the 80 new mechanics that will work nights and week-ends, this will help a lot to solve that crisis.

Minors change for the winter period booking at the RTC, in addition of the temporary phase of the Saint-Augustin changes ... - Route 4 will see buses use de l'Espinay instead of Julien when heading to Place J-Cartier - Route 22 and 88 will use the Robert-Bourassa tunnel instead of passing over it, thus allowing use of the bus lanes, one stop removed - Route 64,74,82,84 and 86 will leave from a new start point at Charest / in face of Beenox due to work to be done to the Gabrielle-Roy library - Route 807 buses will no longer interline with other metrobus route, they will be "dedicated" to that route. They also proceed to add run time. This aims to correct the chronic unreliability of that route

Could you just simply "duplicate" your website, replace the GTFS datafeed and just put a link on the original one to the new version

Two news about the RTC - First Radio-Canada got hand on some breakdown statistics for the Vanhool A330K fleet and numbers are not looking good: Over 350 breakdowns were reported since the introduction of the new fleet, 89 of them were considered major breakdowns. Defect from battery losing powers, yellow liquid pouring inside the busd, hybrid propulsion systems, doors, even 2 generators were sent back to Germany to be repaired by Siemens Article (in french): https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1368247/rtc-midibus-autobus-bris-garage-achat-belgique?fbclid=IwAR12pDa3_Z1pSwAV7dt3Br5PVoQ-b_fqjsIfZCWhmQMi33ohY1WTVaqNS_E - St-Augustin area will see service adjustments following the busload of complains. However, they will come in two phases Phase 1 will be a temporary phase for the winter booking, Route 92 will be adjusted to serve better the CEGEP with more AM departure to compensate the withdrawl of the 292 service to the CEGEP. Route 94 will run VIA René-Lévesque in the morning and afternoon peak bypassing both CEGEP, offpeak service will be like it is right now. Express 292 will also use René-Lévesque to cut travel time to downtown travelers. Phase 2 will be a permanent phase, so the new service pattern will be - Route 92 Saint-Augustin "downtown" to CEGEP Garneau - Service every 30 minutes during peak, 60 minutes off peak - Route 94 Saint-Augustin Bocages to CEGEP Garneau - Service every 30 minutes during peak, 60 minutes off peak - Route 292 Saint-Augustin "downtown" to Quebec City "downtown" - Rush hour only in peak direction of travel, route will also see routing change in Saint-Augustin as the bus will use Fossambault to reach the A-40 instead of Wilfrid-Hamel - Route 294 (New) Saint-Augustin Bocages to Quebec City "downtown" - Rush hour only in peak direction of travel

Likely a driving school bus due to the F Plate

Official press release about the LFSe+, they say autonomy range will be between 340 to 470 km https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/nova-bus-introduces-the-lfse-a-new-long-range-electric-bus-with-dual-charging-options-856225784.html

RTC has announced last week a new partnership with communauto, some of the features of this partnership - Integration of communauto data into the official RTC Nomade App - Reserved spots for two cars at 5 park-n-ride locations - A new package deal with RTC monthly pass + 10 FLEX cars rentals for 99$ per month

07 are the oldest bus in the fleet and their retirement is no where in sight (they will be 16 years old in 2023)

RTC has a new website, currently in testing phase https://beta.rtcquebec.ca/

The residents in the Bocages sector in Saint-Augustin are not happy with the loss of their 295 Express bus to downtown, replaced by a slower bus 94, and they have bombarded the RTC with complains. While students gained a lot on this new service pattern, downtown users have saw their trip time increase by 30 to 45 minutes daily. RTC had a meeting with the residents this week and an express bus service is likely to come back very soon. News article (french) https://www.quebechebdo.com/local/journal-lappel/183845/lespoir-renait-chez-les-usagers-des-bocages/

Unless driver call in for a exchange due to no camera

Tommorow is the Climate March and free transit is offered in many locations Free all day exo trains and buses, STM , STLaval, RTL, RTC, STLevis, STTR, STSaguenay, TACL, Limited free service STO ( 9am to 3pm) STSherbrooke ( noon to 5pm)

Maybe, but they dont seem to have live tracking for the RTC, RTC Nomade and Transit have it