Major transportation infrastructure decisions in remote, resource-rich regions

Transportation infrastructure decisions in remote, resource-rich regions are driven by climate change impacts, high construction and maintenance costs, sparse existing transportation networks, and competing economic and community objectives. In Canada’s Northwest Territories, many communities and industries rely on winter/ice roads, ferry and ice crossings, barging, and air service. Two major all-weather road corridors, the Mackenzie Valley Highway (MVH) and Slave Geological Province Corridor (SGPC), are proposed to improve reliability, reduce costs, and support resource development. However, traditional economic analyses have relied largely on deterministic benefit-cost methods and have not adequately captured investment flexibility or accessibility impacts. This thesis develops a decision-support framework to evaluate how infrastructure decisions under uncertainty affect accessibility. First, a transportation-related data inventory for northern Canada is compiled and assessed across various categories. Second, a Real Options Analysis framework is developed to evaluate timing and sequencing of MVH and SGPC segments under climate and cost uncertainty. The model is used to assess 246 feasible construction scenarios over a 30-year horizon. Third, a long-distance accessibility index is developed for remote communities, integrating passenger and freight travel costs and uncertainty in seasonal mode availability. Finally, the accessibility index is combined with ROA outputs to compare financial performance with community, regional, and territorial accessibility, as well as accessibility inequality. Results show that maintaining seasonal transportation systems can impose substantial long-term costs, making some all-weather road investment economically preferable. SGPC scenarios produce the highest option values when projected mining revenues are realized but provide limited direct accessibility benefits and can impose accessibility opportunity costs when they delay MVH investments. MVH segments, especially the second segment, provide more consistent value through avoided winter road costs, while full MVH construction produces the largest accessibility and equity improvements, but at high financial cost. Without new infrastructure, accessibility declines for communities dependent on seasonal modes, and accessibility inequality increases as climate impacts shorten operational windows. This thesis contributes methods for evaluating northern transportation investments by integrating data assessment, investment flexibility, stochastic accessibility measurement, and financial feasibility vs. accessibility trade-off analysis. The framework supports more transparent infrastructure planning in remote and climate-sensitive regions.