Northern Ontario Air Transportation and Remote Community Resilience and Wellbeing
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Northern Ontario Air Transportation and Remote Community Resilience and Wellbeing by Pia Isabel Dimayuga A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering University of Toronto © Copyright by Pia Isabel Dimayuga 2020 Northern Ontario Air Transportation and Remote Community Resilience and Wellbeing Pia Isabel Dimayuga Master of Applied Science Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering University of Toronto 2020 Abstract This thesis explores the role air transportation plays in northern Ontario remote community wellbeing and resilience using mixed methods based on a modified resilience framework. Six years of cargo data and flight operations data from one airline in the region are analyzed to first, map how remote communities and their infrastructure systems are dependent on air transportation, and second, to analyze air transportation performance. Air transportation is the only mode of year- round travel in 31 northern Ontario communities and therefore plays an essential role in connecting communities to essential goods and services (e.g. food, healthcare). In terms of infrastructure interdependencies, the main cargo delivered by air is diesel fuel for energy, with a secondary good being construction materials. Performance-wise, air transportation faces both infrastructure challenges (e.g. lack of weather reporting, inadequate de-icing services) and operating challenges (e.g. poor weather) that are exacerbated by climate change effects. ii Acknowledgments Throughout the process of developing and completing this thesis, I’ve encountered many people who have contributed not only to this research, but to my personal growth and understanding of the world. Thank you to the University of Toronto and the XSeed funding program. Investing in inter- disciplinary research creates opportunities for meaningful research that is neither here nor there, but somewhere in between. To Shoshanna, thank you for your guidance, mentorship, and for being a strong advocate for me. You inspire me to think critically, ask meaningful and wicked questions, and be open to different perspectives. To Tracey, thank you for letting me be a pretend anthropologist and for being alongside me as I did so. I am in awe of your dedication to indigenous food security issues and your persistence. To everyone at North Star Air, and especially Jeff and Luke, thank you for your willingness to collaborate and to share data. Without your help and participation in my research, I’m not sure I would even have a thesis. To the rest of the XSeed team and the innumerable people I journeyed with and encountered in Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout, Lac Seul, and beyond, thank you. A special thanks to the elders, chiefs, and community members for sharing with an outsider like me. Your stories and active participation in imagining a brighter tomorrow for remote communities is inspiring and necessary. To my colleagues at U of T, in SPM, and in GB418, thank you for the engaging discussions and for the laughs. Learning and growing alongside you all has been a pleasure. To my family and to Jad, thank you for your unwavering and continued support throughout my academic pursuits. Thank you for listening to me present my research over and over again, and for debugging my code. iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................................................... III Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................................ iv LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................................... VI LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................................. VII LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................. X 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 NORTHERN ONTARIO REMOTE COMMUNITIES ....................................................................................................... 2 1.2 INFRASTRUCTURE AND WELLBEING ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.3 STATE OF AIR TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE ................................................................................................. 6 2 RESILIENCE LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................. 8 2.1 SYSTEM AND FUNCTION DEFINITION .................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 INTERDEPENDENCIES ........................................................................................................................................ 9 2.3 HAZARDS, HAZARD IMPACT, AND RISK ................................................................................................................ 11 2.4 QUANTIFYING RESILIENCE ................................................................................................................................ 12 2.5 DROP COMMUNITY RESILIENCE MODEL ............................................................................................................. 14 3 FRAMING AND METHODS ......................................................................................................................... 17 3.1 MODIFIED RESILIENCE SCHEMATIC .................................................................................................................... 17 3.2 KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................... 19 3.2.1 Preliminary community engagement .................................................................................................. 19 3.2.2 Airlines ................................................................................................................................................. 22 3.3 DATA AND FRAMING LIMITATIONS .................................................................................................................... 25 4 CARGO ...................................................................................................................................................... 26 4.1 DATASET DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................................................... 26 4.2 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................. 30 4.2.1 Data cleaning ....................................................................................................................................... 30 4.2.2 Cargo analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 31 4.3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................................. 32 4.3.1 Total cargo distributions ...................................................................................................................... 32 4.3.2 Temporal fluctuations in cargo distribution ........................................................................................ 36 iv 4.3.3 Community diesel delivery ................................................................................................................... 38 4.3.4 The cargo network ............................................................................................................................... 40 4.3.5 Holding time analysis ........................................................................................................................... 41 4.4 CARGO SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................................... 43 5 FLIGHT RELIABILITY ................................................................................................................................... 44 5.1 DATA DESCRIPTION ........................................................................................................................................ 44 5.2 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................. 46 5.2.1 Data cleaning ....................................................................................................................................... 46 5.2.2 Flight data analysis .............................................................................................................................. 47 5.3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................................. 48 5.3.1 Presence of delays and cancellations .................................................................................................