“It’s a fiasco”: Fewer than 2,500 subscribers to subway carpooling app

application of Carpooling launched by authorities following works on Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel According to observers, it has fewer than 2,500 registered members.

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“We have an app that doesn’t work and a reserved lane is closed, it’s a disaster,” criticizes Marc-Antoine Dugas, founding president of Netlift, a platform dedicated to carpooling for companies.

Last year, the contractor was asked to submit a plan as part of the tunnel’s mitigation measures, but the Regional Metropolitan Transport Agency (ARTM) ultimately wants to develop its own system.

The mobile application, launched in May, has 2,456 subscribers, ARTM spokesman Simon Charbonneau said by email, but he did not provide further details about the application.

A “monumental” failure

Since Monday, the access road to the Rue des Futailles access ramp at the top of the tunnel has been closed to carpooling due to “excessive violations,” Mr. According to Dugas, a site worthy of the name is a problem that can be avoided.

“With the license plate system, like on the A25 bridge, it’s much easier to control,” he says.

The “absurdly low” number of registrations makes the ARTM initiative a “memory failure”, believes Guillaume Lavoie, an expert in the collaborative economy and a lecturer at the National School of Public Administration.

With a $0.54 per kilometer discount for drivers crossing the bridge-tunnel with three passengers, the ARTM application does not provide enough financial incentives, he says. “If people want to change their habits, we need serious incentives,” he says.

Little is known

The utility is less well-known, notes Jerome Laviolette, a postdoctoral researcher in transportation at McGill University.

“I’ve never seen much advertising,” says the academic. In the spring, users also testified Newspaper Don’t know her.

However, to create carpooling, there must be sufficient density to locate passengers and drivers near its origin and its destination.

Saving time is also important. In this context, he says, closing access to a lane reserved for carpooling is “foolish.”

The closure does not threaten the continuation of the utility pilot program, Simon Charbonneau assures in his email.

The section that is no longer accessible for carpooling is about a specific access ramp at the top of the tunnel. All other reserved lanes are maintained, he recalled.

l’Application in brief

• Launched in May by ARTM, it is funded by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility;
• Per passenger, $0.12 per kilometer of travel;
• Drivers are paid between $0.10 and $0.54 per km depending on the number of passengers and routes.