ARTM awards $146M contract to UK company to replace OPUS system

A screenshot of a video of Masabi's Justride digital fare system being used by the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in Denver, CO. The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) has announced it will use the same platform. (Source: masabi.com)

The Montreal regional transit authority has awarded a $146-million contract to a U.K. company to modernize the ticketing system across the metropolis.

The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) announced that London-based Masabi has been asked to develop the digital ticketing transformation project.

The company is behind the cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform Justride, already used by more than 200 transit agencies around the world, including in Los Angeles, Calgary, New York, and Valencia, Spain.

Masabi is partnering with WSP, a global engineering and professional services firm, to integrate the fare system in the Greater Montreal area after winning the bid. More than five other companies put forward bids for the project.

It will require updating more than 12,000 pieces of equipment in five territories and involving partners like the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), the Réseau de transport de Longueuil (RTL), the Société de transport de Laval (STL) and the exo commuter train network.

Masabi says “riders will be able to tap to travel using contactless bank cards, mobile wallets, smartcards, and more” with Justride, which will replace the OPUS card system that has been in place for 20 years.

The plastic OPUS cards, however, will be compatible with Justride and can still be used to validate fares.

The ARTM says the project is within its $146-million budget, which includes contingency funds to mitigate any unforeseen hiccups, and is expected to launch sometime in 2026.

The agency adds that the approach allows for the new ticketing system to evolve and add new features without needing a complete replacement of the system.

Android testing comes first, iOS in 2026

The multimillion-dollar project is part of the ARTM’s ongoing Concerto project, a major transformation of the ticketing system used by public transit agencies across the region.

“The cost of the Concerto project compares very favourably with similar initiatives worldwide,” the ARTM said in a news release on Wednesday.

“This is due in particular to the reuse of existing equipment, limiting infrastructure costs; a rigorous negotiation approach, which reduced costs by $95 million between the two calls for tenders; and the choice of a more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective cloud-based solution.”

“Concerto is much more than a tech project: it’s a profound transformation of the public transit customer experience,” said ARTM executive director Benoit Gendron in the release.

“Let’s be clear: the project is well-managed, with solid governance, rigorous monitoring, and testing before each deployment. We deeply believe in Concerto because it reflects our commitment to even more efficient and attractive public transit.”

In May, the ARTM announced that it would be testing the ability to validate transit fares on users’ smartphones during the summer.

This involves a small sample of users, who are part of the “alpha” version of the test phase, allowing passengers to load their transit tickets or fares directly onto their smartphones and then scan them over a reader using near-field communication (NFC) technology when passing through the turnstiles.

Only users of Android smartphones will be able to participate in the testing in 2025. Testing of the function is being done in waves as the number increases over time, with a batch of 600 users now underway, followed by 1,000, then 2,000, and a large beta phase with 10,000 users by the fall.

People with iPhones will have to wait a bit longer. Testing with iOS devices will only take place in 2026.

Teams will collect feedback on the tests and make the necessary adjustments.

As of April 2024, transit users have been able to load fares onto their OPUS cards, also via NFC, by using the Chrono mobile app for iOS and Android devices.