Executive courses

Title of the Executive Course 1: Rural Road Engineering: Materials and design

Resource persons:

Prof. Aravind Krishna Swamy, IIT Delhi

Prof. Priyansh Singh, IIT Indore

Background: It is well known fact that rural roads constitute significant proportion of road network within India. Even though they carry lower volume of traffic, they act as feeder roads. Hence they play important role in connectivity with other components of transportation/highway network. Hence Government of India (GoI) has been investing significant amount of money on upgradation of low volume roads. Recently GoI has mandated to use waste/marginal materials in low volume construction.

Under these circumstances, appropriate understanding regarding component materials, material characterization, and pavement design philosophy is required. The primary purpose of the course is to assist decision makers on some of issues associated with low volume roads.

Intended audience: (i) Engineers working for PWD/ state/ local authorities, (ii) Project managers and supervisors working with design firms, consultants construction firms and contractors, (iii) Student researchers.

Course content:

Tentative sessions and topics to be covered are as follows.

1. Material Characterisation, Mixture Design and Quality Control issues for Rural Road

• Aggregate Characterisation and Blending

• Binder Characterisation

• Mixture Design

• Quality Control Issues

2. Flexible Pavement Design for Light Traffic

• Pavement design system

• Rural Road Environment

• Subgrade Evaluation

• Design Traffic

• Mechanism of Pavement Design

• Tutorial

 

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Title of the Executive Course 3: Pedestrian flow and risk modelling

Course Coordinator: Prof. Ashish Verma, Professor, IISc Sustainable Transportation Lab. (IST Lab.), Dept. of Civil Engg., Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India

Brief outline of the course:

Pedestrians are important as well as the most vulnerable entities of transportation system since every person trip begins and ends in walking. However, pedestrian needs are often not considered effectively in the design and planning of transportation system particularly in developing economies like India. Although popularly the vehicular models are used to analyse pedestrian flow, the degree of freedom in movement is high for pedestrians, bring in much more randomness to the flow. Therefore, modelling the pedestrian flow variables requires careful consideration of the geometrics, directionality, and the psychological state of the crowd. Similarly, while assessing the risk of pedestrians at public places and road crossings, the factors to be considered would also be different. This executive course provides insights on the existing pedestrian flow and risk models. The following aspects will be discussed:

1. Introduction
2. Macroscopic models – hydrodynamic models based on similarity of pedestrian flow with fluids and gases, first-order flow models that use fundamental diagrams and conservation equation
3. Microscopic models – Social force model, optimal velocity model (30 minutes)
4. Sensing – GPS or mobile data-based tracking models, Mask detection and social distancing model
5. Pandemic models – Susceptible infected recovered model (30 minutes)
6. Case study discussion

Resource Persons:

IST Lab. - Prof. Ashish Verma, Gayathri Harihara Subramanian, Karthika P S, Nipun Choubey

External tbc (through online mode) – Dr. Zheng Zhu, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

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Title of the Executive Course 4: Methods for analysis and planning of public transit systems

Resource persons:

Abdul Rawoof Pinjari, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Science

Ipsita Banerjee, Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley (online mode)

Tarun Rambha, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Science

Course outline:

This course will cover the following two aspects relevant to analysis, planning, and design of public transit systems: (1) Methods for transit demand forecasting, (2) Methods for design and planning of public transit systems, and (3) Methods to enhance operational reliability of bus transit systems. The first topic will focus on the development of ridership forecasting models, which can be used to predict changes in ridership and revenue due to changes in service, network structure, fare structure, land-use, etc. The second topic will focus on different types of transit networks and examples of transit network design, covering aspects such as route configuration, stop spacing, and optimal headways. The third topic will focus on bus bunching control methods to enhance headway variability in bus transit systems.

Title of the Executive Course 5: Macroscopic Modeling and Control of Motorway Traffic

Resource persons: Prof. Markos Papageorgiou and Dr. Bhargava Rama Chilukuri

A brief outline of the course: Motorway congestion management is one of the primary goals of researchers and practitioners alike. However, the development of suitable management strategies requires good knowledge of traffic flow modelling and control techniques, which are the focus of this executive course. The first part of the course will give a brief introduction to traffic flow modelling for homogeneous and heterogeneous traffic conditions. The second part of the course will introduce state-of-the-art techniques in motorway traffic control, including ramp metering, variable speed limits, route guidance, among others, along with several field-implemented case studies. Finally, emerging prospects and challenges related to vehicle automation will also be presented.

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Title of the Executive Course 7: Driving Behaviour Assessment Techniques for Traffic Safety Studies

Resource persons:

Prof. Manoranjan Parida, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee

Prof. Ankit Kathuria, Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu

Prof. Digvijay S. Pawar, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad

Er. Akshay Gupta, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee

Participants: The course is relevant for researchers and practitioners involved in road traffic safety research.

This course will cover the following aspects of road traffic safety

1. Brief overview of traffic safety, discussion of different types of traffic studies and analytical techniques
2. Discussion on Driving Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) studies: data collection, analysis and results  
3. Review of Naturalistic Driving Studies (NDS) and their advantages and limitations
4. Review of design parameters on two lane rural highways using naturalistic driving studies from traffic safety perspective
5. Hand on exposure to EFA, CFA and SEM

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Title of the Executive Course 8: New technologies for Construction and Maintenance of Rural Roads

Resource persons:

Dr. Anjan Kumar, IIT Guwahati

Prof. Lyngdoh, IIT Guwahati

Road construction activity transforms pavement design into in-service roads. It is well known that the performance of roads under varying traffic loading and environmental conditions are dependent on the materials, construction quality, and timely maintenance. The challenges for the construction and maintenance of rural roads include material availability and variability, process and production constraints, transportation, and placement. In addition, the available construction period is constrained due to climatic conditions in several country regions. In this aspect, new technologies are implemented in rural roads to meet the requirements of development. 

This course will introduce the basic concepts of good road construction practices using conventional and new technologies. A four-step procurement, production, transportation, and placement of different pavement materials will be introduced. Routine and advanced quality control and assurance tests will be discussed with case studies. The methods of selection and application of maintenance treatments will also be presented.

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Schedule of Executive Courses:

Date/Time	Title	Coordinators	Course Number
14-12-2021 and 9 AM -12 Noon	Rural Road Engineering: Materials and design	Dr. Aravind Krishna Swamy, IIT Delhi Dr. Priyansh Singh, IIT Indore	1
14-12-2021 and 9 AM -12 Noon	Pedestrian flow and risk modelling	Dr. Ashish Verma, IISc Bangalore Dr. Zheng Zhu, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	3
14-12-2021 and 9 AM -12 Noon	Methods for analysis and planning of public  transit systems	Dr. Abdul Rawoof Pinjari, IISc Bangalore Dr. Ipsita Banerjee, University of California, Berkeley, USA Dr. Tarun Rambha, IISc Bangalore	4
14-12-2021 and 2-5 PM	Macroscopic Modeling and Control of Motorway Traffic	Dr. Markos Papageorgiou,  Technical University of Crete, Greece Dr. Bhargava Rama Chilukuri, IIT Madras	5
14-12-2021 and 2-5 PM	Driving Behaviour Assessment Techniques for Traffic Safety Studies	Prof. Manoranjan Parida, IIT Roorkee Prof. Ankit Kathuria, IIT Jammu Prof. Digvijay S. Pawar, IIT Hyderabad Er. Akshay Gupta, IIT Roorkee	7
14-12-2021 and 2-5 PM	New technologies for Construction and Maintenance of Rural Roads	Dr. Anjan Kumar, IIT Guwahati Prof. Lyngdoh, IIT Guwahati	8