More retro STCUM ads: “Vous connaissez pas Telbus?”

I actually remember this ad from 1994, when the then-STCUM introduced and publicized its seemingly revolutionary system where you could call a phone number and get the arrival time of the next bus.

The Telbus system (in which each stop for each route had a phone number attached to it) was eventually replaced with the current AUTOBUS, which has a single phone number and a five-digit code for each stop.

A second ad returns to a dry, if accurate, talking point for public transit: It's cheaper and more reliable than a car in the long run.

Plenty of other (non-transit-related) retro Quebec ads uploaded recently too, including some related to the 1994 Quebec election, a station ID for Musique Plus and a French ad for CHOM FM.

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4 Comments

  • Jean Naimard says:

    Nitpick: “AUTOBUS” has been there since… forever (I remember it being around some 40 odd years ago). The “Telbus” initially used a Centrex™ line to separate out the various stops into considerably less lines, but I suppose it fell to budgetary tightness as a Centrex™ block of phone numbers is a lot slightly more beaucoup expensiver than some cascading lines…

  • Fagstein says:

    Back in Telbus's days, AUTOBUS was the service which is now STM-INFO (though, really both are now run on the same system and you can just press a button to switch from one to the other).

  • Edna says:

    Back in the good old days you could call the number from any phone and punch in the number of the bus route. It was a helluva lot easier to remember that I wanted the 371 heading north than 53294 or whatever the hell it is.

  • ladyjaye says:

    Thanks for linking to my videos! I've been digitizing whatever I could find on my old tapes, with an emphasis on French Quebec ads. I also some English ads from CFCF in the 90s that I will eventually add. I gotta say that I was lucky to find some gems, including those you've linked. :)

    I also recommend that you check out Hifichet's and Johnnys96's accounts, as they also have tons of vintage Quebec ads in French.

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