Route to complaints at the STM

West Island resident Laurie Longtin is just one of many who have had to deal with filing a complaint over at the Société de Transport de Montréal (STM) after having a bad experience on bus trip, but she told The Chronicle she was at least satisfied with the transit authority's fast reply to her call.

"They called me (a day after I left them a message)," explained Longtin, who had been on her way to work last Monday morning on the 209 bus headed toward Dorval when an abrupt manoeuvre by the bus driver pulled her shoulder muscle to a painful extreme.

According to Longtin, the driver was on Sources Boulevard and was definitely going over the speed limit when another passenger suddenly signalled for a stop. The driver hit the brakes, sending Longtin lunging forward as she held on to one of the rubber handles on the bus with one hand.

"I had to go to the hospital," said Longtin, adding she took days off from work because of the unbearable pain in her back and arm.

In her original phone call to the STM, Longtin said she called for the driver "not to be fired," but to be at least told that he should not be driving at speeds above the speed limit.

According to STM spokesperson Isabelle Tremblay, complaints and comments are responded to by the company according to whether or not an answer is specifically demanded by the person who made the call in the first place.

"Depending on the subject, the letter, text or message is moved to the transport centre in question," Tremblay explained.

In Longtin's case, she said that was what had happened, and since Longtin had asked for a return on her phone call, she got one from the supervisor at the transport centre in charge of the buses in the western sector of the island of Montreal, which is located in the St. Laurent borough.

However, Longtin said she did not recall any message by the STM's customer service line stating she would not get an answer unless she specifically asked for one when she left her message

Longtin also thought it strange the bus driver would have been so stressed out that he would have sped up in the first place. "There were no crying babies, no people yelling at him," she said, adding everything was very calm on the bus that morning.

Tremblay said the STM customer service received 24 669 calls in 2007. The majority of those, 22 089, were for complaints. The remainder were for comments or compliments, she said.

"Sixty-eight per cent (of the total number) were regarding buses," Tremblay added. The rest regarded the metro lines.

She was unable to comment on how many of the calls were returned by the STM.

Chronicle, Raffy Boudjikanian