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Climate change is increasingly disrupting public transit systems across Canada. More frequent and severe extreme weather events are driving system-level service interruptions, accelerated asset degradation, and growing safety risks, including rail buckling, flooding of rights-of-way and stations, and power system failures. These impacts place significant long-term cost pressure on transit assets and underscore the need for agencies to move beyond reactive responses and integrate climate adaptation and resilience into capital planning, design, operations, and asset management.

While a range of risk identification and adaptation strategies already exist, inconsistent approaches can limit effectiveness and defensibility. Standards-based solutions offer an opportunity to support coherent, repeatable, and scalable climate resilience practices.

In response to these challenges, CSA Group is developing a portfolio of climate change resilience standards tailored to transit and passenger rail systems. These standards are intended to help agencies systematically assess climate risks, embed resilience across the asset lifecycle, and support transparent, long-term investment decision-making. This session will provide an overview of CSA Group’s climate resilience standards portfolio relevant to public transit and passenger rail and explore how they support more resilient, cost-effective, and future-ready transit systems across Canada.

Speakers

Adriana Shu-Yin

Program Manager, CSA Group

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Adriana Shu-Yin

Program Manager, CSA Group

Adriana Shu-Yin is the Program Manager for Transit and Passenger Rail at the Canadian Standards Association (CSA Group), where she manages the portfolio of standards that enhance safety, innovation, efficiency and climate resilience across the transit and passenger rail sector. Before stepping into her current role, she played a key part in CSA Group’s initiatives on climate change and circular economy, contributing to standards that promote long-term environmental stewardship.
Prior to joining CSA, Adriana spent nearly four years at the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), where she actively supported Canada’s transit electrification efforts. She holds a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Toronto. Through her work, Adriana leverages her expertise to drive impactful change and create a greener future.

Zakiah Kassam

Co-CEO and Co-Founder, JAZ Analytics

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Zakiah Kassam

Co-CEO and Co-Founder, JAZ Analytics

Zakiah A. Kassam, P.Eng., is Co-CEO and Co-Founder of JAZ Analytics and an internationally recognized leader in climate resilience, rail systems, and infrastructure decision-making. With over 25 years of experience spanning process engineering, finance, and law, she specializes in the integration of climate adaptation, system assurance, and advanced analytics into major rail and transit projects. Zakiah has played a key role in the development of Canadian rail safety and resilience standards, including leading work with CSA Group on climate adaptation frameworks for railway systems and contributing to national standards and accreditation programs for independent safety assessors. She currently serves as International Chair of ISO Technical Committee on Environmental Management (ISO/TC 207), which develops International Standards related to environmental management including climate change adaptation.

Derek Hanson

Vice President of Operations, Direx Solutions

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Derek Hanson

Vice President of Operations, Direx Solutions

Derek Hanson is Vice President of Operations with Direx Solutions, with responsibility for delivery across Canada and Saudi Arabia, providing executive leadership on complex transit, mobility, and infrastructure programmes. He currently serves as Associate Project Director for the Qiddiya Q‑Shuttle, a flagship zero‑emission bus programme supporting one of Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious giga‑projects, with accountability for end‑to‑end delivery spanning planning fleet strategy, depot and charging infrastructure, operations, and stakeholder coordination.

In parallel, Derek plays a national leadership role in standards development as Chair of CSA D700 – Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience for Transit and Passenger Rail Systems, and as Chair of the CSA Transit & Passenger Rail Strategic Steering Committee, advancing resilience, sustainability, and system performance across Canada’s transit and rail sector.

Rashid Dorj

Director of Engineering, Rail Cantech

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Rashid Dorj

Director of Engineering, Rail Cantech

Rashid Dorj is currently Director of Engineering at Rail Cantech (a railway track construction and maintenance contractor) and Founder at Genirail (a railway track testing, guideline and product development firm).

Rashid started his railway career with Canarail (Systra Canada), where he worked on the design of various Canadian and international railway projects. He later was Project Engineer for VIAS (an ACS / Dragados subsidiary) on the construction of Ottawa’s Stage 1 LRT project. He subsequently joined the City of Ottawa’s Rail Operations branch, where he planned and managed maintenance and capital upgrade projects for the O-Train Trillium Line. His last assignment at the City of Ottawa was with the Rail Construction Program as Senior Track Engineer on both on the Trillium Line extension as well as the Confederation Line Stage 2 projects.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Building Engineering and a master’s degree in Civil Engineering both from Concordia University as well as a Professional Certificate in Railway Engineering from Delft University of Technology.