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In an effort to reduce customer-caused interruptions, Montreal’s transit agency is giving away cellphone straps at eight métro stations on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Société de transport de Montréal says it is distributing the straps free of charge to reduce the risk of riders dropping their phones onto the tracks and forcing the agency to halt a train.

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A total of 5,000 of the straps are to be distributed at a cost to the STM of $5,800, said STM spokesperson Philippe Déry.

They are being distributed at the Berri-UQÀM and Bonaventure stations on Tuesday morning, and at the Lionel-Groulx and Jean-Talon stations on Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday, STM personnel will hand out the straps at the McGill and Université-de-Montréal stations in the morning and at Place-des-Arts and Rosemont stations in the afternoon.

The STM has said customers are to blame for roughly half of all the service disruptions on the métro, with fallen objects accounting for 550 disruptions, costing the agency 19 hours of service delays in 2017.

This is not the first time the STM has embarked on a campaign to encourage people to hold on to their phones. In 2016, the agency posted signs throughout stations warning people not to go down on the tracks to retrieve objects they lose, and to instead inform a security agent.