Nitika  Bhakuni
Nitika Bhakuni
Associate Center Head, CoE-UT
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.