Center of Excellence in Urban Transport

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The Center of Excellence in Urban Transport (CoE-UT) is a resource center for urban transportation planning and management focusing on technical assistance and advisory activities, human resource development and knowledge management. The center has been recognised as a Centre of Excellence by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Government of India and is supported by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The center’s mission is to create, disseminate and apply interdisciplinary knowledge in urban transportation and thus contribute towards the development of sustainable urban transportation systems.

CoE-UT has been instrumental in putting in place a framework for the design, operations and management of Janmarg, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in Ahmedabad; Sitilink BRT in Surat and HDBRTS at Hubbali-Dharwad. In addition, it has provided advisory services to several cities, including Vadodara, Indore, Bhopal, Pune and Bhubaneswar, to explore the feasibility of BRT and other public transport. The centre is also involved in demand assessment and fare strategy for the Ahmedabad and Surat Metro projects.

CoE-UT conducts the “Leaders Program in Urban Transport Planning and Management” - a certificate course for in-service urban transport professionals in collaboration with the World Bank and the MoUD.

Leadership

Shivanand Swamy

Director Emeritus

Shivanand is an economist and urban and regional planner with deep experience in transport systems, integrated landuse-transport planning and development management. He has been teaching at CEPT University since 1986 and has served as a policy and systems advisor to National, State and Local Governments on public transport and planning initiatives across the country. He has been instrumental in spearheading the planning and operationalization of Janmarg, Ahmedabad, the first dedicated Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) in India. He has also supported the planning and development of BRT systems in Surat, Bhubaneswar, Hubbali–Dharwad and Vadodara. Shivanand is an advisor to the MoUD, Government of India on evolving planning and design guidelines for BRTS and scaling up of bus-based services in Indian cities. He is currently involved in facilitating technology adoption, operations, financing and capacity building for transitioning to electric public mobility in India.

Shivanand is an active member of the Developing Countries Committee of the Transport Research Board and an Advisor to Land Transport Academy, Singapore.

Shalini Sinha

Center Head and Principal Researcher

Dr. Shalini Sinha is the Center Head and Principal Researcher of the Center of Excellence in Urban Transport (CoE-UT). She is the Program Chair- Master of Urban Transport Systems and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University. She is a Transport and Urban Planner with around twenty years of experience in India and the UK.

Dr. Shalini brings her extensive experience to bear on improving research, advisory and capacity building related to the aspects of transport and urban planning for the built environment. She has worked on a number of urban transport and urban planning projects. More recently, Dr. Shalini has been involved in the BRT projects for Hubli Dharwad, Surat, Vadodara and Ahmedabad.

She has also been involved in demand modelling for Metro projects in Surat and Ahmedabad as well as in research projects related to strategic transport planning, integrated land use transport strategies, demand modelling and public transport network planning. Her research interests lie in transport policy and practice, transport modelling, economic appraisals and public transport planning.

Dr. Shalini has also been associated with several capacity building programs in urban transport. She is a Member of the IHT (The Institution of Highways and Transportation), U.K and an Associate Member of the Institute of Town Planners, India.

Dr. Shalini has also undergone a Professional Certificate Course in Public Transport Management in Singapore and has successfully completed a Trainer Programme in Case Teaching by The World Bank in Washington. She has a PhD from CEPT University and a Masters degree in Transport Planning and Engineering from the University of Leeds, U.K.

Nitika Bhakuni

Associate Center Head

Dr Nitika is the Associate Center Head of the Center of Excellence in Urban Transport (CoE-UT) at CRDF. She is also an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University.

She has over 20 years of practical experience working on a wide range of Planning and transportation projects in India and the UK. Her expertise in working with GIS Data Management Systems and advanced GIS has helped her in Urban Planning and the transportation sector along with Center for Geomatics.

As the Associate Professor at CEPT University, she teaches urban planning and transport systems studio courses. Her background in Geography and Planning and her quest to learn on the job has helped establish her as a GIS professional in India and the UK. Her professional journey began with Zoning Atlas for siting of Industries in Himachal Pradesh using GIS and database management skills. She then joined NIF, Ahmedabad as a GIS consultant setting up the GIS-based MIS for the organization.

She moved to the UK in 2003, working with British Waterways as a Canal Project Officer and establishing a GIS-based auditing technique to provide access to audits for canal towpaths and integrate the same with SAP. After that, she joined Mouchel Parkman as a consultant working on managing the Ordinance Survey database licensing system and corridor assessment for the A5 Motorway system in Northern Ireland.

On her return to India in 2009, she joined CEPT University and collaborated with CoE-UT extensively on planning and transportation projects, where her expertise has been on GIS-based database management, spatial and network analysis in addition to strategic planning, land use transport integration, social and environmental impacts and transportation accessibility.

Some of her notable work includes land use planning for flood-prone areas in Surat; Integrated Mobility Plan, Benchmarking Urban Transport in Indian Cities, Ahmedabad region; Comprehensive Mobility Plan and Route Rationalization and Rapid Assessment of City Emission from Transport and Energy (RACE) tool.

She has a PhD in Transport from CEPT University, Ahmedabad, a Masters's Degree in Geography from Punjab University, Chandigarh and a second Master in Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

CoE-UT Team