Digital fares are officially on their way, meaning Montrealers will soon be able to tap their phones at turnstiles and bus readers instead of pulling out an OPUS card. But before anyone throws their plastic card into the nearest snowbank, there is one important caveat: if you own an iPhone, you are not at the front of the line
According to new details obtained by the Journal de Montréal, the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) is entering the next phase of its long-awaited $146-million digital fare overhaul, known as Project Concerto. The first wave of public access will begin in a few weeks (shortly after the holidays), when thousands of Android users will be invited to test virtual transit cards in the Chrono app. Once activated, riders will be able to tap their phones to validate individual or monthly fares just like a physical OPUS card.
"It's a small revolution, especially for young people," Sylvain Perras, executive director of digital transition at the ARTM, told the Journal de Montréal. "For everyone, actually. People like having it only on their phone."
Apple users, however, will have to sit tight. The ARTM says iPhone compatibility will arrive sometime in 2026, explaining that rolling out the system on one platform first allows engineers to troubleshoot issues before expanding it across both ecosystems. Officials insist the delay will not drag on for long, but they are not giving a firm launch date yet.
Meanwhile, STM users have had the option to refill their monthly transit passes with their mobile phones as of April 2024.
If this all sounds familiar, it is because Montreal has been inching toward this moment for months. As we reported back in May, the ARTM quietly began testing tap-to-ride payments on STM buses and metros this summer with a limited group of employees and selected members of the Parlons mobilité panel. Back then, the agency made it clear the feature was experimental and not yet a true digital OPUS card. The idea was to iron out technical barriers and build the back-end infrastructure that would eventually support a full public rollout.
That groundwork now appears to be paying off, and the city is finally catching up to transit systems in Toronto, New York, and Paris, where phone-based access has been in use for years.
For more information on the Chrono app, you can visit the ARTM website.
