Photo: Martin C. Barry
Laval’s two well-known children’s choirs, les Petits chanteurs de Laval and les Voix boréales, will be providing the new voice
notification system’s announcements

The Société de Transport de Laval has started giving its fleet of buses a new green and blue look. But something much more practical is also being added — the vehicles are being fitted with cutting edge technology to tell riders out loud when there are transfers to connecting bus lines and upcoming stops.

New colors, new technology
According to the transit agency, the blue in the new design scheme is meant to evoke the sky and water. The green, on the other hand, represents the prairies and forests. As for the new visual and sound equipment, on each newly-fitted bus an alphanumeric display at the front near the ceiling will be providing all the information about stops and connections. The name of the stop will also be voiced out loud over the vehicle’s onboard PA system. But there’s an added bonus, especially for fans of music.
Members of Laval’s two well-known children’s choirs, les Petits chanteurs de Laval and les Voix boréales, will be recording the announcements with their soft voices. This latest initiative, worth about $1.2 million, falls within the transit agency’s wide-ranging $4 million STL Synchro program, launched earlier this year with the installation of outdoor display units at key bus stops. The units indicate in real time exactly when the next bus will be arriving. The STL expects to achieve new levels of efficiency with the technology, according to Laval city councillor Jean-Jacques Beldié, the transit agency’s president.

More riders sought
Other recent advancements at the STL make it possible  for users to register to use STL Synchro. The system is adaptable to many forms, including registration over the Internet on MySTL, mobile phone alerts, social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, and mobile use with smartphone technology. The STL hopes to increase its ridership and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions with these measures. For some time now, all vehicles in the STL fleet have been using B5 grade biodiesel fuel, which is a blend of five per cent canola-based biodiesel with 95 per cent low sulphur petroleum diesel. Biodiesel is said to burn cleaner with significantly less unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter in emissions.
The STL operates a fleet of buses which currently make more than 20 million runs annually. An overhaul of the bus network was made necessary by the extension of the Metro to Laval, giving rise to a 28 per cent increase in service. The STL claims that the frequency of buses outside rush hours, that is during evenings and on weekends, has doubled on a dozen lines since nearly a year. The STL claims that since the roll-out of a new vehicle scheduling control system last year, on-time performance has risen to more than 92 per cent.

Other improvements
Apart from implementing new technology and improving service, the transit agency has also implemented a new fare structure designed to encourage families to make more use of public transit. Adults who pay the regular fare on weekends, on holidays and every day this summer from July 1 to Labour Day, may be accompanied free of charge by up to five children up to 11 years of age. The STL also broke new ground a few years back when it implemented a special $1 fare on summer days when smog levels exceed the acceptable norm.