New Data Shows Whether Curfew Is Keeping Montrealers Off Public Transit

It measures Transit app activity on different days at different times.
Senior Writer

Are Montrealers respecting the Quebec-wide curfew and stricter lockdown measures by staying home? 

Transit app — that app where you can plan and pay for rides on the STM, RTL, STL, and exo — has released new data to help us gain more insight. 

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-45.6% Montreal transit app users on Saturday night, compared to the previous week

According to Transit, usage of its app between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. dropped by almost half this past Saturday, Sunday and Monday compared to the same period seven days prior. 

If time no longer has meaning for you, we'll remind you that curfew began on Saturday.

While Transit can only measure the number of times people open the Transit app, rather than how many people are actually riding public transit, it's still an indication of how many people are looking to take the train, metro or bus. 

Though we can't draw definitive conclusions, and we don't know if the approximately 50% of people still looking to take transit during curfew are essential workers, we can see there's been much lower demand for public transit during curfew hours. 

This is true outside of curfew hours as well. 

At 11:12 a.m. on January 12, demand for public transit was down 76% in Montreal compared to normal, with "normal" being based on last year's numbers. 

  • Ilana Belfer
  • Editor

    Ilana Belfer (she/her) was an editor for MTL Blog. She's obsessed with great storytelling in all its forms having worked in print, radio, television, theatre, and digital media over the past decade. A graduate of Carleton University’s journalism program, her words have appeared in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Kit, VICE, Salon, Foodism TO & more — covering everything from cam girls to COVID-19. Ilana can usually be found with her dog André, tracking down Montreal’s prettiest ruelles vertes and tastiest treats.

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