.jpg)
You read about my thoughts on Montreal’s new smart card, Opus, when it was officially launched in April. Now you can read my article in the Gazette that adds a few quotes and some facts to my musings. I speak to an STM spokesperson about how Opus got its name and to a Boston journalist about how people there have taken to the CharlieCard. Here’s an excerpt:
When Montreal’s new public transit smart card was officially launched in late April, most of its details had already been known for months. There was, however, one surprise: its name, Opus, which was chosen from more than 1,000 proposals and then kept secret for nearly four years.
(…)
For the Société de transport de Montréal, which led Montreal-area transit agencies in the creation of the new smart card, creating a memorable name was essential.
“Three hundred fifty thousand people buy a métro pass each month and they use it every day. With a smart card, they need to keep the card permanently, so we need to build a relationship between it and the consumer,” STM spokesperson Odile Paradis said in a phone interview. “They need to keep it, take care of it, make it part of their lives. If it didn’t have a name, it would just be an anonymous access card that nobody would care about.”
Opus is being phased in, starting with a small test group now, and expanding to students this summer and the general public in September. The old turnstiles are to be removed next June.
In 2004, when the STM asked its employees what the new smart card should be called, it received 1,394 proposals. Eventually, it whittled that number down to just four: Transcité, Transit, Sesame and Opus.
“Our criteria were that it was a simple word that was easy to remember, that it was as easy to say in English as it was in French, that it was marketable,” Paradis said. “It was Opus that really passed the test. It’s short, it has Latin roots and it is used in different languages. It also means a creative work and it refers to a numbered musical composition, which is appropriate because each card will have a number. ‘Carte Opus’ also rhymes with ‘carte à puce’ ” (smart card).
Read on to learn more about the history of branding smart cards.
12 comments
“Sesame” would have been so much cooler. “Opus” just sounds like a meaningless corporate acronym.
Oh well.
Opus sounds pretty cool to me but that’s not the reason for my comment, My better-half buys her passes every months. At the last income taxes filling, she sent in all 12 for a tax return for people using public transport.
How will this be done with the Opus?
second question, I uses the metro about 4 times a month, should I get one to replace my tickets?
I’m sure the machine you use to “buy” the monthly pass on the card will issue a receipt.
I get the logic behind the name, but it definitely doesn’t have the personality that “CharlieCard” does. I did a quick Google and turned up a few smart-card names from other cities:
I guess Opus is more memorable than SmarTrip. I do like Oyster, ORANGES, Octopus and ORCA. (Why all O’s? I don’t know.) I’ll probably keep calling them Metropasses just out of habit though.
Interesting to note that lots of these have features I’ve not heard of the Opus having — for example, in Spain they are one and the same as people’s Visa/Cash cards. In SF, apparently, people can just wave their cellphones at the turnstile. And in many cities you can refill your cards at vendors like dépanneurs and magazine shops.
After Opus is fully implemented you should be able to refill them at any of the depanneurs and others shops that currently sell metro passes and tickets. Smart cards could potentially be used like debit cards — that’s how it works in Hong Kong — but Interac is already so well-entrenched it probably isn’t worth the effort.
J’aurais voulu un nom mexicain genre pedro ou gringo ou sanchez
If it ends up being a pain, we can say that it’s an acronym for;
Odile
Paradis
U
Suck
I went to buy my July pass at Jean Talon metro today and they are offering the OPUS card. It cost $3.50 and the metro attendant told me it’s good for 4 years (not sure why…does it self-destruct). Unfortunately, you can’t seem to register it on the website.
Where I envision potential problems, is the introduction of Opus system to the elderly, pre computer era users. I would suggest that many more information providers be made available just to counsel this segment of the travelling public.
first…I have yet to find someone in the metro to explain (in English) how this works..
Also, I don’t really like the name OPUS..It sounds kind of old fashioned and dorky.
We should have gone with a more futuristic name like “Terminator”….or some really quirky one that everyone will remember..like “Banana”…LOL
Just a small question about the metro: Im new here in Montreal, Im mainly an English speaker but do speak fluent french (and love the Quebec accent I hear). At the Metro I noticed the annoucements are only in french! I havent taken the metro a lot– was my experience just a one-off or do they give out the messages in english as well. I ask because I saw a few people totally confused as they coudlnt undestand what was going on when they(metro staff) announced a delay on the line.
No they dont replay the msg in english.. Kinda pisses me off since I only really speak english, so I would have been one of those confiused people you saw that day :P And to BruB the STM will MAKE you buy an OPUS soon anyway so just keep doin what your doin.. You’ll have one soon lol