Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 04

44 / Canadian Government Executive // July/August 2018 RISK MANAGEMENT O ntario Northland is a crown corporation that provides transportation solutions to Northern Ontario. This vast re- gion of the province is twice the size of the United Kingdom, has a population of over 500,000, and is rich in forestry and mining resources. Many of the towns and cities first developed around the railroad line and still rely on rail today for moving people and goods. The crown corporation is over 100-years old, and their services touch much of the population of Northern Ontario. Over 300,000 passengers travel each year via motor coach and passenger rail. Ontario Northland also provides rail freight ser- vices to key sectors such as forestry, ag- riculture and mining. They also provide the only all-season land link to Moosonee, ensuring that passengers and essential supplies reach remote First Nations com- munities in the far north by rail. Ontario Northland maintains 650 miles of mainline track and their own rail and motor coach equipment. Their repair ex- pertise has been commercialized, and they now provide external repair services to many of North America’s railways. Essentially, the company is steeped in history and provides diverse transporta- tion services. With rich history comes tradition, an at- tachment to the past, and in many cases, resistance to change. The entire North American railway industry is very tra- ditional and, in places and at times, has been slow to embrace modern technology. Four years ago, Ontario Northland start- ed a corporate transformation program. Many processes at the time were rooted in the past and negatively impacting busi- ness by slowing down access to informa- tion and delaying decision making. “Data was being inputted manually, and many records were not digitized,” says Chad Ev- ans, Vice President of Corporate Services at Ontario Northland. “We needed to learn more about operations and identify opportunities for technology where inte- gration and digitization could improve monitoring and decision making.” Over the past few years, Ontario North- land has implemented technology – big and small – in its rail network that is con- tributing to better risk management. As the VP of Corporate Services with a back- ground in technology and business, Evans was familiar with operational and cor- porate enterprise risk management best practices. To gain a better understanding of the impact of risk to the railway itself, he threw himself in the frontlines, spend- BY CHAD EVANS How a 116-year old regional railroad incorporates new technology to manage risk on the rail. THE RAIL STORY BEHIND RISK MANAGEMENT