City urges STM to create app to fight harassment

The city is asking the Société de Transport de Montréal to look into creating an app to combat harassment of women and other vulnerable people in the public transit system.

Opposition councillor Karine Boivin-Roy, representing the Louis-Riel district, proposed the motion, which was adopted unanimously by city council on Tuesday.

Paris and Toronto have apps that allow transit users to report incidents, she noted.

Mayor Valérie Plante said that she pushed for such a measure when her Projet Montréal party was in the opposition.

The motion “invites the STM to study the creation of a mobile application allowing users to report and geolocate in real time harassment cases within its network, in order to document them and to intervene with people whose right to move freely without being harassed was not respected.”

It also recommends the STM launch an awareness campaign among its employees to train them to recognize cases of harassment and take action.

It noted that most women who file complaints of harassment end up giving them up because the STM tells them it is impossible to find the person who harassed them.

The transit corporation is also being urged to publicize its Between Two Stops program by putting up signs on buses informing passengers travelling alone that they may ask the driver to let them off between stops if they are afraid of being followed or harassed.

According to an online survey of 218 women in 2016-17 by the centre, 147 said they had been harassed in the métro, 109 at a bus stop and 90 on a bus.