Author: Animesh Das

Prof. Manoranjan Parida is currently Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Roorkee. He is working on an imprint research project called “Propagation and Mitigation Model of Mixed Traffic Noise for Planning Mid-Sized Indian Cities.” His present doctoral research includes walkability, transit-oriented development, service quality models of metro system, planning of P&R around MRTS, and traffic noise modelling for mixed traffic situation. He has provided sustainable solutions for more than 350 road infrastructure projects for urban areas, intercity corridors rural roads, and expressway. Professor Parida received the Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award in 2004 from Indian Road Congress and Outstanding Teacher Award of IIT Roorkee. Professor Parida is also Independent Director on the Board of Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. and Convener of Urban Roads and Streets Committee, Indian Roads Congress, New Delhi. Dr. Avijit Maji is Associate 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 Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology) in 2000. He has more than sixteen years of academia and industry experience working for organizations in India and USA. His area of expertise includes design, operations, and safety of transportation infrastructure. He has published more than sixty journal and conference papers. For his contribution, Maryland Society of Professional Engineers conferred him with the “Young Engineer of the Year Award” in 2011. He is Licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in Maryland, USA, and Transportation Professional Certification Board’s certified Professional Traffic Operations Engineer (PTOE). Dr. S. Velmurugan is presently working as Chief Scientist at CSIR-Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi, and alsothe Former Head one of the vibrant divisions of CSIR—CRRI namely, Traffic Engineering and Safety (TES) Division. He completed his Ph.D. in Transportation Systems Engineering at IIT, Bombay, in 1995. Dr. Murugan had two stints of Post-Doctoral Research (PDR) in Belgium and Australia in the fields of his specialization i.e. traffic and transportation engineering. He was instrumental in the formulation/revision of 18 publications of Indian Road Congress (IRC) during the last 15 years. Dr. Murugan is serving as Project Coordinator for the prestigious Project: “i RASTE (Intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering) in Nagpur” being executed by CSIR—CRRI in collaboration with International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, INAI (Applied Research Center for AI at IIIT-Hyderabad), M/s. Intel India as well as M/s. Mahindra and Mahindra under the initiative of Sh. Nitin Gadkari Ji aimed at the reduction of 50% fatalities in Nagpur city. The maiden version of the Indian Highway Capacity Manual (Indo—HCM) was successfully completed by Dr. Murugan in collaboration with seven academic institutes in the country by assuming the role of Champion in 2018 which is extensively referred by the research fraternity, academicians and practicing engineers. Further, he has provided sustainable solutions for more than 160 road related projects covering the subject areas of road safety, road safety audit, public transport evaluation, and estimation of road user costs addressing the issues in the inter-urban and urban roads including expressways. Dr. Murugan was bestowed with the Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award in 2008 from IRC and the Outstanding Scientist Medal by the Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC) in 2015. Dr. Murugan is presently serving as the Co-convener of the “Intelligent Transport System” i.e. G-7 Committee of IRC. Dr. Animesh Das is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur. Dr. Das’s area of expertise is pavement material characterization, analysis, design, and evaluation. He is interested in both theoretical as well as experimental studies. He has worked on problems related to characterization of asphalt mix and aggregates, asphalt recycling, asphalt micromechanics, microstructure and image analysis of asphaltic material, pavement design optimization, pavement surface characterization etc. He has published several papers in various journals and conference proceedings of repute.