Senior Transportation Economist

SYSTRA Canada is part of the SYSTRA group, an international consulting and engineering group, a world leader in the design of transport infrastructures. SYSTRA Canada is an engineering and consulting firm whose primary focus is to offer transportation solutions, whether for passengers or goods: feasibility studies of building a new railway line, increasing the capacity of the existing infrastructure, privatization of a railway.

Context

The Senior Transportation Economist provides advanced expertise in economic and financial analysis, transportation planning, life-cycle costing, and asset management. The individual supports the planning, evaluation, and prioritization of projects and investments by integrating total cost of ownership, service performance, risk, maintainability, resilience, and sustainability considerations.

Missions/Main Duties

Expertise and Analysis

• Conduct in-depth market analyses and forecast changes in freight and passenger traffic at the national and regional levels.
• Assess the economic profitability, financial viability, and socio-economic impacts of projects, services, or improvements in the rail, road, marine, and intermodal sectors.
• Develop and apply economic and financial models tailored to different operating and infrastructure configurations.
• Carry out life-cycle cost and total cost of ownership analyses to support investment decisions.
• Develop comparative analyses across different design, operations, maintenance, renewal, replacement, and life extension scenarios.

Strategic Planning and Asset Management

• Conduct cost-benefit analyses, multi-criteria analyses, and investment assessments that incorporate cost, risk, performance, resilience, and levels of service.
• Support the development of asset management strategies and investment prioritization across the full life cycle.
• Contribute to the economic assessment of asset preservation, performance improvement, renewal, and state of good repair needs.
• Work collaboratively with technical, operations, maintenance, and asset management teams to translate operational and performance requirements into economic analyses that support decision-making.
• Help define and assess levels of service, performance indicators, and trade-offs among capex, opex, maintenance, and renewal.
• Conduct cost-benefit analyses and recommend appropriate funding solutions, including public, private, or partnership models.

Strategic Advisory and Decision Support

• Participate in the development of public policy, strategic infrastructure planning, and the identification of business opportunities.
• Provide clear strategic advice and produce structured reports to support decision-making by clients and public or private authorities.
• Document economic assumptions, evaluation methods, and prioritization criteria to ensure the traceability and robustness of recommendations.
• Contribute to business cases that integrate economic, technical, environmental, and climate resilience considerations.

Communication and Project Management

• Present analyses and recommendations in workshops, meetings, and presentations to clients, partners, and authorities at various levels.
• Support project management and ensure the quality, rigour, and consistency of deliverables.
• Work at the interface of multidisciplinary teams in economics, engineering, operations, maintenance, finance, and data.

Profile/Skills

Education: University degree in economics, finance, or a related field.

Years of Experience: A minimum of 10 years of applied experience in economics in the transportation sector, with demonstrated exposure to both freight and passenger transportation.

Technical Skills: 

• Proven experience in market studies and traffic forecasting related to transportation projects.
• Good understanding of rail transportation operations.
• Advanced skills in financial and economic modelling.
• Strong command of cost-benefit analysis methods and economic impact assessment.
• Demonstrated experience in life-cycle cost analysis or in the economic evaluation of infrastructure assets.
• Good understanding of asset management principles and decision-making frameworks based on cost, risk, and performance.
• Good knowledge of rail, road, and marine issues and operations, and ideally of the Canadian intermodal sector.
• Ability to interpret technical, operational, or maintenance data and translate them into economic analyses and strategic recommendations.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to communicate clearly on complex topics.
• Excellent command of Microsoft Office, particularly advanced Excel; knowledge of specialized analytical tools, asset databases, or asset management environments would be considered an asset.
• Experience in public policy development, investment strategy, asset portfolio management, or strategic advisory would be considered a strong asset.
• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, in French and English*.

*Reasons justifying bilingualism: You will have the opportunity to work with a diverse client base, including both French- and English-speaking organizations. Bilingualism is therefore essential to build strong client relationships, understand their specific needs, communicate effectively in the language of their choice, and facilitate strategic meetings.

Personal Qualities:

• Open-mindedness and a commitment to continuously developing one’s expertise.
• Excellent analytical, synthesis, and communication skills.
• Rigour and professional judgment.
• Ability to work effectively with multidisciplinary teams.
• Availability for occasional travel within Quebec, across Canada, and internationally.

SYSTRA Canada is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer that values applications from all and offers employment equity based on the merits and abilities of candidates and personnel.

We use AI-enabled tools in our recruitment platform (iCIMS) for tasks like resume parsing and candidate matching. These tools do not make hiring decisions; all applications are reviewed by a human recruiter, and final decisions are made by our hiring team.For questions about our hiring process or AI tools, please contact [email protected].

Note: In this description, the masculine gender is used for easy reading purposes and includes the feminine.