# Exo (public transit)

Exo, stylized as exo and officially known as the Réseau de transport métropolitain (French pronunciation:, RTM; English: Metropolitan Transportation Network), is a public transport system in Greater Montreal, including the Island of Montreal, Laval (Île Jésus), and communities along both the North Shore of the Mille-Îles River and the South Shore of the St. Lawrence River. It was created on June 1, 2017, taking over Montreal's commuter rail services from the former Agence métropolitaine de transport as well as bus and paratransit services from the various suburban municipal and intermunicipal transit agencies. Exo operates the second busiest such system in Canada after Toronto's GO Transit.
Exo's territory is concurrent with Montreal Metropolitan Community limits, with the addition of the Kahnawake First Nations reserve and the city of Saint-Jérôme. It serves a population of approximately 4 million people who make more than 174,000 trips daily in the 4,258.97 km$^2$ (1,644.40 sq mi) area radiating from Montreal.

## History

A regional transit agency in Greater Montreal was first created by the Quebec government in 1995 with the Agence métropolitain de transport, with the mandate of developing, coordinating and promoting transit throughout the area; improve and develop the commuter rail network, and; encourage integration of different modes of transit. On December 20, 1996, the AMT took over responsibility of the commuter trains from the Société de transport de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal (STCUM).
On June 1, 2017, the AMT was disbanded in a reorganization of metropolitan transit authorities. A new agency, the Réseau de transport métropolitain (RTM) was created to be responsible for operating commuter rail and suburban transit services.
In May 2018, the RTM adopted the Exo brand (stylized exo, all-lowercase), to represent the sub- and exurban nature of its service area.

## Partners in transport

Exo's parent agency, the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), is charged with transportation planning for the Greater Montreal area.
Exo operates commuter train service as well as the bus service outside of the three main population centres of Greater Montreal. In these areas service is provided by the Société de Transport de Montréal on the Island of Montreal, the Société de Transport de Laval in Laval, and the Réseau de transport de Longueuil for the urban agglomeration of Longueuil.

## Commuter rail

Exo commuter rail (reporting marks EXO) is a system of five radial commuter rail services serving the Greater Montreal area, operated by Alstom, using trackage owned by Exo as well as by the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
Exo's commuter trains are its highest-profile division. It uses diesel-electric push-pull trains. The Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Mascouche lines run on Canadian National trackage and operate out of Central Station, while the Vaudreuil-Hudson, Saint-Jérôme, and Candiac lines run on Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) trackage and operate out of Lucien L'Allier terminus, beside the historic Windsor Station. The Saint-Jérôme line also runs on CPKC trackage and on Exo's own trackage between Sainte-Thérèse and Saint-Jérôme.
Operation of all commuter rail was provided by contract to CN and CP (on their respective rail networks) until June 30, 2017. Operations were taken over by Alstom (then Bombardier Transportation) beginning July 1, 2017, on an 8-year contract.

## Fares

Exo services operate within the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM)'s integrated fare structure for Greater Montreal, which manages its fare schedule and fare zones.
In 2022 the ARTM began a multi-year program of updating and simplifying the fare schedule. Through this process, and as the Réseau express métropolitain replaced some train and bus services, certain legacy fares were retained and new transitional fares were created, with the objective of slowly raising prices over time to match the simplified fare structure and then ultimately be phased out — a process called lissage (smoothing). As of July 2024, Exo commuter rail and certain bus sectors still have these unique fares.

## Buses

Exo runs multiple bus lines through its subsidiaries serving Montréal suburbs.
Exo operates all commuter bus services for the North Shore and South Shore suburbs, excepting the cities of Longueuil and Laval, which have their own transit agencies.

## Ridership

In 2018, Exo carried 174,710 passengers on a typical weekday — 77,210 on the trains and 97,500 by commuter bus, including adapted transport.
Number of Passenger Trips (2023) :
| Rail lines |||
| Vaudreuil–Hudson line | 2,263,792 | |
| Saint-Jérôme line | 2,085,468 | |
| Mont-Saint-Hilaire line | 780,760 | |
| Candiac line | 677,144 | |
| Mascouche line | 340,861 | |
| Subtotal — Rail lines | 6,147,995 | 6,147,995 |
| Bus routes |||
| Exo North Shore buses | 8,217,932 | |
| Exo South Shore buses | 6,737,806 | |
| Exo Paratransit | 652,719 | |
| Transit on demand | 69,164 | |
| Subtotal — Bus system | 15,677,621 | 15,677,621 |
| Total — Exo System | 21,825,616 | 21,825,616 |