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Transport committee The STM has set its own objectives in order to achieve that target. The STM's objective is to acquire only zero-emission vehicles, but by 2025. That means that the standard bus that the STM buys in 2025 will be 100% electric and will recharge overnight and be in service all day,
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee As Serge said at the start of the presentation, the target is for 95% of trips to be done by electricity. So we are not talking about 95% of the vehicles, but about 95% of trips. Currently in Quebec, half of public transit trips are done by vehicles powered by electricity. We ar
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee The biggest obstacle in the case of the tramway is currently funding. So that is at the provincial level. As for the trolleybus, the project is currently under review, but we are confident. Hydro-Québec will help us with the fixed equipment that comes with the trolleybus. Quebec'
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee Yes, before selecting electrification and even before the provincial government announced its objective of electrifying public transit, we did our homework. So we studied buses with hydrogen fuel batteries, buses powered by natural gas and all kinds of other buses. I will spare y
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee With trolleybuses, the wires are a very serious issue. Unfortunately, induction, magnetic and other technologies are mainly applied to tramways, and that is very recent even in that case. We are still talking about demonstration projects; this is not really in service. For trolle
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee As I explained a little earlier, fuel cell buses are electric buses: you merely replace the batteries with fuel cells. All the traction system in the bus is the same. The problem with fuel cells is with the hydrogen in them. Once you put hydrogen in a bus, you cannot put the bus
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee That's a tough one. We don't look at it this way. STM bus service is built around 12-metre buses that can accommodate 60 people. The service is built with buses of this capacity that can be left outside for more than 24 hours without refuelling. I think the range is 500 kilomet
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee You have to understand that the transit bus market in Canada is not very big. Even if we have thousands of buses to buy in the next four years, those thousands of buses are for a big European company that builds every year....what?
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee You have one company that builds 8,000 a year, and you have many companies like that. They would be interested in coming to us and selling the buses and putting them in conformity with our rules and regulations if they could sell those buses to the United States, but they will
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee Yes. You have to understand that North American buses are built to the Americans' liking. They're very huge buses. They're very tough, they're like tanks, and they're very heavy. We have them in service for 16 years in Montreal. They're very tough. European buses are lighter, s
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee In an airport, you—
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee Airport buses are special buses. They're much bigger, and since they don't go into the streets, the rule doesn't apply. You can buy whatever you want to ride on your private property. It's not a street, so they can use anything.
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee You're right that our ridership has been rising, with record figures over the last years. Unfortunately, it's not because of technology. STM has been very aggressive with publicity, in a big public campaign saying that it's very intelligent for someone to take the bus or take the
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee There are two sides to your question. The first side is about best practices. For the last 15 years I have been a member of many international committees. The UITP, which is the international union of transporters, makes exchanges with all the major metros of the world and all th
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland
Transport committee Yes, through CUTA we do that. But you have to understand that natural gas buses have been around for more than 20 years. I don't see the point of having a demonstration of natural gas buses. You can buy them off the shelf today. Even New Flyer offered them. So it's not new techno
May 29th, 2012Committee meeting
François Chamberland