Transport Canada is the federal government department responsible for regulating and monitoring the safety, security and efficiency of Canada’s national transportation network. As such, risk assessment and mitigation management are a large and complex part of its role. For its Pre-load Air Cargo Targeting (PACT) team, this means reviewing tens of thousands of cargo shipment messages a year. Like many organizations, PACT was finding traditional methods of analyzing such large quantities of data burdensome. At the time, the team was relying on a combination of slow legacy systems and manual processes. It was time consuming and labour intensive.

Transport Canada then asked a very forward-thinking question: How could they leverage “disruptive technology to solve a common problem — improving risk-based oversight?”

For BDO Lixar, a premier data & AI company, the answer was simple: Modernizing the process through automation and AI would be the key factor in enabling the PACT team to work better and more efficiently.

In any industry, when we rely on old technologies and high levels of manual labour, we open ourselves up to more potential for error and slower turnaround times. As the world becomes more and more datadriven, it has become necessary to modernize the way we collect, analyze, and share data. Automation and AI helps people, including experts and analysts, get meaningful insights quicker, with more accuracy, and more efficiency.

When Transport Canada engaged BDO Lixar, we were asked to create a risk-based oversight program, for a more efficient and more effective, screening process that would make our transportation system safer for all Canadians. With this in mind, we set out to prove the value of having a strong data platform, backed by strong data expertise. The project was a success. We developed a secure, cloud-based analytics system that streamlines the entire PACT process.