Montreal metro is one of world's most reliable, says STM

In the face of a series of recent metro breakdowns in Montreal, the service is launching a social media strategy to help commuters deal with delays.

The public transit corporation held a press conference on Thursday to address last week's increase in the frequency of metro issues.

"This is very bad news," said the executive director of the STM's metro operations, Dominique Lemay, in reference to the recent stoppages.

Causes of last week's disruptions:

• Computer problems
• Breakdown of metro cars
• Passenger emergency

Lemay saidthe metro is one of the more reliable systems in the world, and last week was an exception.

He said over the past 15 years, the average number of 20-minute interruptions on the Montrealmetro ranged from8 to 12 incidents per month.

But the installation of a new, more complexcontrol room contributed to seven interruptions in just one week.

Lemay said the service will be putting a new actionplan in place to deal help prevent interruptions.

The STM will also be launching new twitter accounts for each of the metros four lines to notify users of delays: @stm_verte @stm_orange @stm_jaune @stm_bleue