This flag is an antique which is likely to be replaced by a new RTL flag. Prior to the amalgamation that created the new City of Longueuil, St-Bruno-de-Montarville was a separate municipality that had its own transit service, operating similar to a CIT. The St-Bruno transit service is slowly being integrated with the rest of the RTL, but there are still differences such as different zone fares. Both the STM and RTL used to use round signs like this, but have changed to rectangular signs. This stop is located on Boul. Seigneurial, adjacent to a park&ride lot for express buses which is also the former site of the St-Bruno commuter train station. The train station was moved about 2 km west to provide easy park&ride access from Autoroute 30.

Le Réseau de Transport de Longueuil (Longueuil Transit Network) http://www.rtl-longueuil.qc.ca/ provides service within the newly-amalgamated City of Longueuil, which is the urbanized suburbs of Montreal on the South Shore of the St. Lawrence River. Prior to amalgamation, this agency was known as the STRSM or La Société de Transport de la Rive-Sud de Montréal (Transit Corporation of the South Shore of Montréal). The new City of Longueuil encompasses the municipalities formerly served by the STRSM, with the addition of St-Bruno which previously had its own transit service similar to a CIT. These are the new RTL flags. The RTL is technically the Société de Transport de Longueuil, but it uses "Réseau" for its public image to avoid confusion with the long-established STL which is the Société de Transport de Laval, serving the City of Laval north of Montreal. RTL Route 28 operates Monday to Friday. Route T18 is a collective taxi service which operates "off peak" (evenings, in this case), Saturdays, and Sundays.

In the rural areas surrounding the urbanized suburbs of Montréal, there are several transit agencies known as "Conseil Intermunicipal de Transport" or "Intermunicipal Transit Council" providing commuter service from various towns into Montréal. This particular one is CITVR which is "CIT de la Vallée du Richelieu" or "CIT of the Richelieu Valley". http://www.citvr.amt.qc.ca/ This photo of a typical flag was taken along the main highway through the town of Mont St-Hilaire.

This photo was taken at the Mont St-Hilaire commuter train station, advertising the shuttle route 22 of the CITVR. Yes, that's my burgundy van parked illegally in the bus stop area. The train station only sees limited service during rush hours, so there is nobody around during the mid-morning when this photo was taken.

From the city of Rivière-du-Loup. TCI is Transport Collectif Intégré or Integrated Collective Transport in English. This stop is located at the hospital.

La Société de Transport de Montréal http://www.stm.info Route 216 operates only during peak periods Monday to Friday. This stop is located along the service road adjacent to Autoroute 40, the Trans-Canada Highway.

The signs from Montreal are coded with a series of symbols that describe the route:
- wheelchair symbol if it's an accessible route
- metro logo and station name if that direction of the route goes to a metro station (Route 216 on the attached photo)
- train logo (same idea as metro above) (all the other routes on this photo)
- AM and/or PM if it's a peak only route (they have since changed it to text "lundi au vendredi, periodes de pointe seulement", but I prefer the simple "AM" and/or "PM"
- it's more language-independent, and clearly shows which peaks have service)
- a moon symbol if it's one of the special overnight buses
- etc.
An "AM" or "PM" is quicker to decipher than a colour code for people who aren't necessarily familiar with the system. A text note like "excluding Sundays" or "no service Sundays" could supplement a regular route number (although this can get complicated - our system maps has a huge long list of exceptions to the "black routes run 18 hours/day, 7 days/week except as noted ...")  Text & Picture by C. Leech.

From the city of Trois-Rivières. I'm not quite sure what C.I.T.F. stands for. Perhaps it's an old acronym. Like many municipalities in Quebec and Ontario, several smaller municipalities were amalgamated to form a single city over the last few years. The transit agency is currently referred to as STTR: La Société de transport de Trois-Rivières http://www.sttr.qc.ca/ . Note the schedule information on the flag. During the times when service operates every half hour, buses on Route 2 Papineau pass this stop at :10 and :40 minutes past the hour. When service operates hourly, buses pass the stop at :10 minutes past the hour. The translation of the rest of the flag is:
No service at this stop after:
8:15 p.m. Monday to Wednesday
10:15 p.m. Thursday and Friday
6:15 p.m. Saturday and summer schedule

This is a shelter at the central terminal for local buses in downtown Trois-Rivières.

More bus stop photos from the Montreal area, with a bit of explanation. To the best of our collective knowledge (Montrain mailing list members), there hasn't been any bus service in the Vaudreuil area (west of Montreal) for a few years. Picture provided by C. Leech, text by C. Leech.

two obsolete bus stop flags used by the CTCUM/STCUM. While the 214 stop has been retired for almost two years, the old CTCUM no stopping panel still haunts us in certain areas. Photo credit goes to Mathieu Boucley