STM begins next phase of testing for long-range electric buses

The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is beginning a new phase of testing for its new long-range electric buses, which will be serving customers on various routes throughout December. The several weeks-long testing period will be the first time that the public has ever boarded the vehicles, representing one of the final phases of performance validation before the official commissioning.

The main objective of this testing phase is to check all the features that could not be validated during the phases conducted without passengers, such as boarding and exiting, real-time information display, payment system functioning and customer comfort.

These checks must be done on a limited number of vehicles, and the required tests will determine which routes and schedules are selected. The STM understands that customers are eager to try the new buses and, while the company shares their enthusiasm, it can only confirm that the testing will be done on bus lines associated with the Stinson bus garage—lines that serve the western and northwestern areas of the city.

The STM has acquired a total of 30 long-range electric buses from Canadian supplier New Flyer. If the testing goes as planned over the next few weeks, the STM is confident that it will be able to commission all of the new vehicles in winter 2022—yet another major milestone in the electrification of the surface transit network.