AMT finds money to improve image, despite big cuts
Transit authority looking for help
Despite deep budget cuts, Montreal’s commuter train authority has found money to hire a firm to monitor its image online and in the news media.
Via a public tender issued this month, the Agence métropolitaine de transport is seeking a company to help track radio and TV reports; regional, national and international media coverage; and what is said about it on the Internet.
The data, to be collected seven days a week and updated at least three times daily, “will allow the AMT to evaluate its image and measure how it is perceived,” the tender document said.
The supplier will also provide software to be used by the AMT’s customer-service department to handle social media.
AMT spokesperson Claudia Martin said the contract for the company currently providing the media monitoring expertise and social-media management software is expiring.
That contract cost the AMT about $200,000 over three years, Martin said.
The tender document says the new supplier will be expected to provide a software tool that will allow the AMT to closely monitor what is being said about it on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Flickr.
The list of media to be covered includes Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Toronto newspapers, Montreal-area radio stations and dozens of weeklies around Quebec.
In the document, the AMT suggests words, phrases and names that should be under surveillance — and ones to exclude.
To be monitored: CN, CP, airport shuttle and François Cardinal, a columnist at La Presse.
The exclusion list includes some oddities, including “immigration of Italians” and “women’s volleyball.”
The AMT is in belttightening mode.
In November, it announced it was slashing its 2014 budget by $20 million. Total spending this year is now set at $269 million. The agency also eliminated 30 jobs — five per cent of its workforce.
Last week, the AMT cancelled Montreal’s annual carfree day so it could save more than $250,000.
AMT train fares increased by three per cent on Jan. 1.
Martin said it’s crucial for the AMT to monitor media coverage and what the public is saying about transit and AMT services.
The social media software lets the AMT respond quickly to customers who post questions and comments, Martin added. “It’s a customer-service tool that we use every day,” she added.
In 2013, passengers took 17.4 million trips on the AMT’s five train lines.