This book is a collection of selected research papers from the 15th conference of the Transportation Planning and Implementation Methodologies for Developing Countries (TPMDC 2024). It covers the broad area of transportation planning and policy, pavement design and engineering, emerging technologies in transportation, traffic management, operations, and safety, and sustainable mobility in transportation. The book aims to provide deeper understanding of the transportation issues, solutions, and learnings from the implemented solutions. This book will be of best interest for academicians, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners.
Dr. Avijit Maji is a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay, India. He received Doctor of Engineering from Morgan State University, USA in 2008; M.Tech. from IIT Kanpur in 2004; and B.E. from Bengal Engineering College (now known as Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology) in 2000. He has more than 20 years of academia and industry experience working for organizations in India and USA. At present, he is an Editorial Board member of Transportation in Developing Economies, Executive Secretary of the Transportation Research Group of India, member of Power and Infrastructure Committee of Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, member of H-8: Urban Roads & Streets Committee of Indian Roads Congress. He had also served as the Co-Chair of Performance-Based Approaches and Applications Subcommittee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), USA, and Vice President of Maryland Society of Professional Engineers Baltimore Chapter, USA. His area of expertise includes design, operations, and safety of transportation infrastructure. He has published more than 80 technical research papers in journals, edited books, and conferences. For his contribution, the Maryland Society of Professional Engineers conferred him with the "Young Engineer of the Year Award" in 2011. He is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in Maryland, USA, and Transportation Professional Certification Board's certified Professional Traffic Operations Engineer (PTOE).
Dr. Nagendra Rao Velaga is working as a professor in the Transportation Systems Engineering Group of IIT Bombay. His major areas of interest include Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), human factors in ITS, and transport accessibility and mobility. He received his Ph.D. in Transport Studies from Loughborough University, UK. Before joining IIT Bombay, he worked as a research fellow for three years at the Research Councils UK (RCUK) digital economy research hub, University of Aberdeen, UK. Dr. Velaga has about 15 years of experience in industry and academia in India and abroad. He has published more than 100 technical research papers in peer-reviewed international journals.
Dr. Solomon Debbarma is an assistant professor in Transportation Systems Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Bombay. Before joining IIT Bombay, Debbarma was an adjunct lecturer and a postdoctoral research associate at the Ingram School of Engineering of Texas State University, San Marcos, USA. He received his Ph.D. and M.Tech. in Civil Engineering from IIT Roorkee. He graduated with a Civil Engineering degree from NIT Agartala. His primary research interests include rigid pavements, sustainable concrete materials (e.g., recycled aggregates, industrial wastes, agricultural wastes), and special concrete for pavement applications. He has more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and was the lead author of 13 of the papers published in peer-reviewed journals. He is a Life Member of the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) and a Volunteer Member of the ACI Committee 555 on Recycled Concrete Aggregates. Debbarma served as a reviewer for several international peer-reviewed journals. He is a Young Faculty Award recipient awarded by IIT Bombay. In addition, he was the Entrepreneur Lead for the NSF Innovation-Corps project: High-performance Cementitious Materials, funded by the National Science Foundation, USA in 2021.
Dr. Sangram Krishna Nirmale is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He specializes in transportation engineering, with a strong focus on driver behaviour modelling, travel demand analysis, and econometric modelling of urban mobility systems. He holds a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, where his research centred on multi-vehicle anticipation-based models for describing driver behaviour in heterogeneous and disorderly traffic conditions. Before joining IIT Bombay, he served as a Research Scientist at the Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation, and Urban Planning (CiSTUP) at IISc Bengaluru. His academic journey includes an MTech in Urban Planning from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur, and a BE in Civil Engineering from the Government College of Engineering, Karad. Dr. Nirmale has made significant contributions to the field of transportation research, particularly in developing driver behaviour models for Indian traffic conditions. His work has been published in leading journals, including Transportation Research Part C, Transportation Research Part B, and Transport Policy. His research interests include discrete choice modelling, perception errors in travel behaviour, and integrating econometrics with machine learning for transportation analysis. His technical expertise spans data analytics, GIS tools, and simulation, contributing to his role in advancing urban transportation planning and policy development.
