Adapted transportation service in Quebec City in chaos following cyber-attack

People who depend on Quebec City's adapted transportation service (STAC) to get around will have to wait until next week before the service is fully restored.

A cyber-attack on Monday morning froze the organization's online server, making it impossible to dispatch vehicles to STAC's 10,000 users.

Patrick Fougeyrollas, who uses a wheelchair, missed two days of work. While he was able to reserve a ride by phone for Wednesday, Fougeyrollas said it's unfortunate that others "are being held hostage".

"We need adapted transportation as compensation for our disability, and it's crucial for social participation, not just for work," he said.

Since priority is given to people who need a ride to their workplace, for school or for medical appointments, users like Sébastien Thériault have missed out on social outings.

"I missed my curling club's Christmas party, it's really not fun," said the 32-year-old who lives in the Beauport neighbourhood.

"It's like getting your legs cut off, because you can't go anywhere," said Thériault, who uses STAC several times a week.

Call centre open to meet demand

The Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC), that supervizes operations for STAC, has added personnel and extended its call centre's hours to process requests that would normally be handled online.

But service for people who suffer from cognitive deficiencies, which make up around 50 per cent of the clientele, had to be cancelled altogether.

The RTC's general manager Alain Mercier said because they have special needs, it was impossible to safely "bring people from point A to point B," without having access to their personal information.

"When people entrust their children to us, or young adults who are not independent we have to take special precautions," Mercier told Quebec AM host Susan Campbell.

For the other half of its clientele, STAC was able meet around 60 percent of demand on Tuesday. Mercier said he hoped to see that climb to 80 per cent by the end of Wednesday. 

Full service should be restored by Monday, as specialists manually re-enter the lost data.

No Plan B

This has Fougeyrollas questioning why there was no back-up plan to recover the information and prevent the system from shutting down altogether.

Mercier said they've "learned their lesson," and will migrate STAC's technical data into the RTC's central server, "to prevent these kinds of attacks in the future."

The cyber-attack was an automated program that was able to "find a weak spot" in their system, said Mercier.

Meanwhile, David Morin has been fielding dozens of calls from people trying to understand what is happening.

He works for the Carrefour familial des personnes handicapées, an advocacy group for people with disabilities in downtown Quebec City.

He is satisfied with the quick response from the RTC to restore the essential service.

"No one is responsible for this except those who sent this virus," Morin said.

"People are doing what they can, and they are having to deal with this crisis just like we are."