Extreme rain and the resilience of public transit in Montréal: What adaptation measures should be taken to make the transit system flood-resilient and how should the responsibility be shared?

This project aims to improve the understanding of the Montréal public transit system’s vulnerability and exposure to extreme rainfall. It will also help identify adaptation solutions and tools supporting collaborative infrastructure governance.

Project details

Scientific program

Programmation 2020-2028

Theme(s) and priority(s)

Extreme Events - Economy - Climate Governance - Climate Science and Climate Services - Adaptation of Living Environments

Start and duration

September 2025 • September 2028

Project Status

Starting

Principal(s) investigator(s)

Julia Frotey

INRS

Paul Célicourt

INRS

Context

Montréal’s public transit system regularly faces episodes of extreme rain, some of which lead to service interruptions. With more than 288 million trips per year, it is an essential service for the socio-economic functioning of the city. The city’s vulnerability to climate hazards is a critical and strategic issue. This project aims to improve the understanding of the vulnerability and exposure of Montréal’s public transportation system to extreme rainfall, and to propose structural adaptation solutions and tools supporting the collaborative governance of infrastructure.

Objective(s)

The main goal of the project is to improve knowledge of the level of vulnerability of the Société de transport de Montréal network in the event of extreme rainfall. By the end of the project, the aim is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the network’s vulnerability, and to propose and evaluate structural and non-structural adaptation solutions to make subway stations resilient to episodes of extreme rainfall.

Methodology

The planned work is divided into four structural stages:

Identification of relevant data in the literature and with partners, and construction of a shared database
Assessment of the Montréal public transit system’s level of exposure to the risk of extreme rainfall and identification of the most vulnerable infrastructure
Proposal and evaluation of structural flood risk adaptation measures for the selected subway infrastructure
Proposal and evaluation of non-structural adaptation measures or governance and prevention measures to deal with intense rainfall

Expected results

Synthesis of the knowledge on the failures of transportation networks in the event of extreme rainfall and comparison of methods for evaluating structural and non-structural adaptation measures
Creation of a database to store available data and the geovisualization tool
Assessment of the risk level of the transit system’s infrastructure
Assessment of the risk level of the transit system’s infrastructure by including information on climate drift and teleconnections; presentation of useful non-stationary IDF curves; and selection of the most vulnerable infrastructure
Proposal of a guide and/or master plan for the development of grey and green infrastructure near public transit, also summarizing the approach, the methodological choices, the tools developed, and their limitations

Benefits for adaptation

This project and the structural and non-structural solutions identified could promote collaboration between the Société de transport de Montréal and the Ville de Montréal through the use of the common planning tools that will be proposed.

Although it is keyed to the Montréal context, this approach has a general scope that may be of interest to other jurisdictions and public transit operators.