2020 Virtual CUTRIC Canadian Smart Rail Technology Conference

The inaugural Canadian Smart Rail Technology Conference 2020 is on track to be an innovative and progressive event, leading smart rail conversation in Canada! We’re proud to support this year’s meeting as a Gold sponsor. 

Check out where you can hear from our experts to learn about integrating big data and rail to optimize systems, the future of electric transit, and more! 

HDR Sessions

Welcoming Address

• November 24 | 8:45-9 a.m. ET
• Keynote Speakers:
  • Maggie Walsh, VP, Strategic Pursuits Leader, HDR
  • Josipa Petrunic, President and CEO, CUTRIC
  • Walter Kinio, VP, Research and Innovation, Thales

Big Data & Rail: Optimizing Rail Systems Using the Power of Data

• November 24 | 10:20-11:20 ET
• Presenters:
  • May Raad, Principal Statistician, HDR
  • Juergen Zajicek, Research Engineer, AIT Austrian Insitutte of Technology GmbH
  • Dr. Yan Liu, Principal Researcher, National Research Council Canada
  • Martin Trepanier, Professor, Polytechnique Montreal and CIRRELT

As part of CUTRIC’s nation-wide rail consultations (held from 2017-2019), rail stakeholders across the country identified data, and especially big data in support of track optimization and track usage , as a means of improving how people and trains move across the country. Big Data in rail has been identified as a tool that can help national freight carriers, like Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway share track better and more efficiently with passenger rail systems like VIA Rail and Metrolinx. Big Data combined with artificial intelligence can also help identify systems failures and parts failures before they happen to help avoid the most cataclysmic rail events — dangerous derailments — saving lives and costs along the way. Join this panel to learn about the next big steps in rail-led big data innovation, and find out where Canada is leading and where we need to catch-up to offer Canadians better rail that is future-proofed and data driven this century.

Electric Transit Rail: Growing Canada's Top Transit Rail Systems

• November 24 | 2:40-3:40 ET
• Panelists:
  • Margaret McBride, Regional Tunnels Programme Leader, HDR
  • Michael Ladrak, President & General Manager, British Columbia Rapid Transit Company Ltd. (BCRTC)
  • Brendon Simon, Program Manager, LRT Operations, The Region of Waterloo
  • Liam Martin, Product Manager, ABB

Urban rail moves the vast majority of the 88 million annual rail passengers nation-wide in Canada today. And the bulk of those riders and clients are located in rail systems operating across Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. An economically robust nation needs to be able to move more people — faster and more economically — across urban centres and into regional economic hubs. Yet, serious gaps exist for many transit riders and potential transit clients nation-wide. 

This panel will focus on electrified urban rail systems — subways, light-rail transit, the Skytrain, and streetcars — in urban centres. The country’s leading urban rail jurisdictions can share lessons as to how to fix the country’s lack of sufficient rapid transit mobility nation-wide. As cities struggle with COVID19 drops in revenue, this panel will discuss whether LRT or electrified bus rapid transitways (BRTs) are the right way forward for mass urban “rail” styled mobility that move more people, more efficiently and less costly than ever before.