Injecting much-needed, additional rail infrastructure design expertise to the Canadian market
11 November 2024
The concept of ‘Transit Oriented Development’ is not new. It simply means having a plan which envisions how your communities should grow in a sustainable manner where all supporting infrastructure necessary for growth is developed hand in hand. Affordable housing continues to be the focus of major cities around the world and the ability to develop areas across those cities, to decongest, cater for additional facilities etc., relies on effective and efficient transportation systems. In Canada, Ontario, Alberta, BC are leading with impressive long-term planning that has seen the development of transit systems in cities such as Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto. These projects - along with necessary inter-City connectivity that will likely see the growth of high speed/high frequency railways – are not one-off, stand-alone developments, but are a collection of infrastructure that is giving rise to implementable solutions for housing development and other critical facilities.
But implementing the above requires qualified, experience PEOPLE. To fish from the same pond, is akin to a child stirring food around on a plate without eating it. There are only so many engineers available to hire in Canada. What you often find, is that engineering companies become reluctant to hire & train new graduates, because of the risk of losing them within a couple of years. If you hire a Civil Engineering graduate fresh out of university for an entry level annual salary and spend roughly $25,000 per year on their training (courses, etc.), within 2 or 3 years as that graduate becomes capable & experienced enough to carry out tangible work. Then a competitor can readily waltz in and offer that graduate a hefty raise without having borne the cost of training, etc. This has been a recurring theme over the years. But as an industry, we must continue to invest in training new graduates regardless. There is also an urgent need for Canada to attract and bring in experienced engineers from abroad. But the international market is also facing constraints, with a growing number of major infrastructure projects set against a dwindling resource pool. So, it ends up as a beauty parade.
At RSI Alliance we are doing both. We entered the Canadian market mid-2023 and engaged the Civil Engineering departments at local universities to evaluate new graduates, and have now hired our first full-time, graduate engineer. Alongside that, we’ve brought in several experts from Europe to provide input on an ongoing major transit infrastructure project in Ontario. This week, we have relocated a specialist to Toronto, whose area of expertise is critical in delivering transit infrastructure, bringing her vast experience from Europe to Canada.
RSI Alliance is focused solely on railways & associated infrastructure, and we have unparalleled experience in the design and related input at all stages: from pre-concept to feasibility studies, master planning, preliminary engineering and detailed design, right up to test and commissioning, and operations. Earlier this year, we pulled together an impressive array of local & international firms to pursue the Alberta Passenger Railway Masterplanning tender. We work with both public sector project owners as well as constructors on Design-Build, PPP, Progressive Design-Build, Alliancing and other formats. Our vision is to bring much-needed, additional engineering resources into Canada, while also developing new graduates in tandem, to add to the talent pool as opposed to coming in and fighting it out by hiring from already heavily-stretched local resources. We are applying the same ethos to how we pursue work in Canada, focusing on rail and seeking to work collaboratively (and not in aggressive competition) with other design firms - bringing in our expertise to help deliver in Ontario, Alberta & BC.
