Louis Paul Tardif

Senior Associate

Louis-Paul has over 45 years of professional experience in transportation. He holds an M.A. in Geography with a specialization in transportation from York University and a B.A. from Laval University also in Geography. He did his Ph. D studies at Ottawa University (ABD).

From 2007 to early 2021 he was Director, Multimodal Transportation Performance & Capacity Analysis at Transport Canada. In that capacity he was responsible for the development and maintenance of indicators providing a measurement of the performance and capacity utilization of the transportation sector in Canada. Those indicators are now part of the Canadian Center on Transport Data at Statistics Canada.

It was during that time that he developed the concept of measuring supply chains using a fluidity indicator; taking into account all modes of transport from an end-to-end perspective. He also worked on the development of multi modal transportation modelling for the resilience of long supply chains. His work in that area was instrumental for the development of the West Coast Supply Chain Visibility Platform. His pioneer work on the democratization of public data assisted in the development of private/public partnerships leading to the creation of multimodal ecosystem in Canada’s port system.

 While at Transport Canada, he also led several projects focusing on the development and better understanding of the role of air cargo across Canada. His work in that sector led to a marketing twinning agreement between Vancouver Airport and Shanghai Airport.

Occupations prior to joining Transport Canada:

  • Principal of his own advisory firm, L-P Tardif & Associates (1994-2007)

  • Canadian Trucking Alliance including Director General of the Alliance, (1982-94)

  • Quebec Ministry of Transport, (1980-1982)

  • Canadian Transport Agency (1978-1980)

His international experience includes:

  • The US National Academy of Science committee on Transport Fluidity,

  • ITF/OECD Expert Groups including a Task Force on supply chain resilience,

  • Contributed to the implementation of the World Bank Logistics Performance Indicators,

  • Chair of the International Road Transport Union Working Group on the use of simulators