A few words

Passenger rail is growing, both in Canada, and around the world, as a key player in public transportation. Already well established as the cornerstone of public transportation in Europe and Asia, it is attracting renewed interest and investment in countries on every continent. It is proving itself, day-in and day-out, as a practical, cost-effective investment to ease congestion on highways and airways, to support increasingly mobile populations, and reduce the impact of transportation on the environment.

In Canada, the Government is investing almost one billion dollars, including $407 million from Canada’s Economic Action Plan, to improve and expand the capacity of passenger rail. Launched in 2007, VIA ’s capital investment program made good progress in 2010. Rebuilt and modernized locomotives and passenger cars came out of the shop and into service. New station projects got underway across the country. Major construction projects to upgrade and expand track capacity are on target for completion.

As these projects progressed in 2010 the corporation renewed its focus on operational efficiency, eliminating waste and delivering the best possible value to customers and taxpayers. The Board believes that this focus goes hand-in-hand with the transformation of passenger rail through capital investment. I am confident that the entire VIA team will continue to achieve operational improvements throughout 2011 and beyond.

VIA has brought new members to its management team, people with the expertise and experience necessary to manage the transformation of the corporation now underway. The Board would like to thank those who retired from VIA during 2010 for the lasting contribution they have made to VIA ’s success. The new management team, and VIA ’s employees, are building on a valuable legacy built over many years.

I would also like to express my personal appreciation, along with that of the entire Board of Directors, for the work of Donald A. Wright, who completed his term on the Board in 2010. During his four years of service as Chairman, the corporation successfully faced many critical challenges. His leadership during this time will have an impact on the future of VIA for many years to come.

Public interest in the future of passenger rail is higher today than ever before. Should that interest evolve into building dedicated, high speed rail services connecting key urban centres, its success will depend on the transformation of Canada’s national passenger rail service now underway.

As the transformation progresses, VIA remains committed to offering a safe, reliable, cost-efficient and environmentally-responsible transportation option to Canadians from coast to coast.

Paul G. Smith
Chairman of the Board

When I joined VIA in 2010, I was already impressed by the quality of the organization, the dedication of its employees, and the potential of passenger rail to grow and respond to the needs of the future. I am even more impressed now, when I look back on what we achieved during the year.

With a full-scale transformation of our physical assets in progress, we devoted renewed energy to transforming the way we operate as a business. We implemented an approach called Lean management that focuses on operational excellence throughout the corporation. That means continuous improvements in operational efficiency and productivity, eliminating waste, identifying what our customers value most – and delivering that value consistently, every day.

It is an approach that calls on the efforts of every single employee. And by pulling together, we achieved real progress. Despite a drop in ridership and continued volatility in the marketplace, we increased total revenues significantly over 2009. We also cut operating expenses well below the budget for the year. And we improved cost-recovery for passenger rail, regaining the upward momentum VIA had achieved before the 2009 recession.

In short, we delivered more value to our shareholder, the Government of Canada, and to taxpayers.

Work on infrastructure projects created significant challenges for our services, affecting the on-time performance of some of our trains. But here too, we achieved significant results. Highly focused and coordinated efforts brought improvements on specific services, especially for Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto trains, and performance in Eastern Canada improved dramatically over 2010. As a whole, we managed to keep overall on-time performance even with the preceding year, while moving forward with the major track upgrades and construction projects.

We also focused considerable efforts on improving the way we listen to and engage with our customers, the communities we serve, and the suppliers we work with. Lean management extends beyond the corporation. We reach out to our customers to better understand what they need and value, and to our suppliers to seek their support in delivering value efficiently.

In this regard, I would like to express VIA ’s appreciation to all of our suppliers, and especially the freight railways who own track used by our trains and the companies who are helping to rebuild and renew our locomotives and passenger cars. Our continued success in the years ahead depends very much on continued partnerships, and I look forward to strengthening those partnerships in 2011.

As our capital investment projects are completed, we will have new opportunities to deliver value to our customers, with better equipment, more attractive passenger facilities, faster and more reliable trip times and more frequent train services between major centres. We will face new financial and operational challenges during this time of transformation, as we work to attract new customers, introduce new services, and meet the changing needs of travellers.

I am confident that we will meet those challenges – by continuously focusing on operational excellence, and delivering the best value possible to every customer who boards our trains. We are committed to providing Canadian taxpayers with a national passenger rail service of which they can be proud.

Marc Laliberté
President and Chief Executive Officer