Transportation Engineering Laboratories
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Delhi

The Transportation Engineering Laboratories at the Civil Engineering Department, IIT Delhi, are state-of-the-art research learning facilities dedicated towards innovation in the area of Transportation engineering. This includes various sectors like construction industry, transportation consulting firms, MoRTH, BRO, aviation sector. Designed to support cutting-edge research and academic excellence, several laboratories have been established towards integration of traditional approaches with advanced tools (like high-end equipment of international standards, and industry-leading software etc). It is equipped to address the evolving challenges of the modern urban and rural transportation infrastructure. These labs fosters research in traffic management, traffic simulations, pavement structural analysis, sustainable supply chain management, urban planning, geospatial studies, pavement materials, infrastructure management and transportation logistics. There are five major laboratories: Pavement Materials Lab, Pavement Characterization Lab, Sustainable Pavement Materials Lab, Traffic dynamics and simulation Lab, Transportation Planning and Design Lab, each focusing on specific aspects of modern technology. These facilities provides an interdisciplinary platform for researchers, industry professionals, and students to collaborate, innovate, and contribute to the future of transportation engineering. Thus enabling enabling the development of next-generation transportation professionals.

Laboratories

a) Pavement Materials Lab: This lab focuses on evaluating various materials used in highway and airport pavements. This lab evaluates the physical, mechanical properties of pavement construction materials including Soil, Aggregate, Binders (unmodified bitumen, modified bitumen), to specification adherence for durability, long term performance, and strength. Additionally, facilities are available to check materials suitability for specific site conditions and to predict its performance under real-world conditions as per international standards.

b) Pavement Characterization Lab: This lab is specialized with advanced characterization and scientific analysis of pavement systems. The lab focuses on evaluating the mechanical and engineering properties of pavement mixtures to ensure their performance, durability, and sustainability. This lab looks at design, maintenance, and rehabilitation road pavements through in-depth analysis of material behaviour under the specific conditions seen across the country. The laboratory has facilities to simulate various traffic and environmental conditions in laboratory.

Additionally, the laboratory research focuses on structural design of flexible and rigid pavements for Highways and Airport Pavements, Pavement Management Systems, Quality Control, Life cycle costing, Techno-economic analysis of pavement systems.

c) Sustainable pavement materials Lab: This lab focuses on developing, and characterizing environmentally friendly and sustainable pavement materials for transportation infrastructure in the country. Additionally, material testing and performance evaluation are conducted to assess the index of eco-friendly, low energy consumption, cost-effective, and sustainable pavements by incorporating recycled, renewable, and lower-carbon materials. This lab specializes in innovative technology, characterization of pavement materials including emulsion, cutback, stabilized soil systems.

d) Traffic dynamics and simulation Lab: This lab specializes with advanced methodologies on studying vehicular traffic (including surveys, speed, flow and density measurements), pedestrian dynamics (i.e. study of people movement), and level of Service and capacity analysis of highway infrastructure. This lab makes use computational tools, simulation software, and data analytics to analyse traffic behaviour, optimize transportation networks, and improve urban mobility. Advances analysis and simulation tools are available to design signalised intersection, roundabouts and traffic signals at city and regional level.

Additionally, the research covers transportation demand modelling, Network design, facility Location Models.

e) Transportation Planning and design Lab: This lab focuses on the development, optimization, and evaluation of transportation systems. It integrates principles of urban and regional planning, traffic engineering, and sustainability to create efficient and safe transportation networks.

Additionally, the research covers Highway alignment, establishment of design controls and criteria, elements of design. Horizontal and vertical highway alignment and profile. Geometric design of intersections and interchanges. Basic concepts of planning at urban and regional levels. Conventional and current approaches for travel demand estimation. Implementation of models

Software Tools

The labs utilize a comprehensive suite of industry-standard software to support research and education. Some of the key software tools used include:

· PTV Tutor Academic License Software for advance Traffic Planning, Modelling and Simulation and digitally reproduces the traffic patterns of all road users on a microscopic scale.

· Pedestrian Evacuation with smoke dynamics Software (building EXODUS software V6.3) for Simulation of different human behaviour in fire evacuation from any type of buildings, metro stations etc.

· SIDRA for the design and evaluation of single intersections and advanced traffic modelling to improve road network performance and reduce congestion.

· NGENE for generating experimental designs for stated choice surveys, and doing experiments consist of a series of hypothetical choice tasks that are used to elicit behaviour and preferences from consumers, patients, farmers, travellers, and other.

· NLOGIT 4.0 software for estimation, model simulation and analysis of multinomial choice data, such as brand choice, transportation mode.

· GAUSS software for the solution of numerical problems in statistics, econometrics, time-series, optimization and 2D- and 3D-visualization.

· TRAZER software is used for camera based Automated Traffic Counting and Classification (ATCC) software technology that is used widely for Urban Planning to study the city traffic. The software tool automatically detects and classifies moving vehicles in a traffic video stream

The Transportation Engineering Laboratories at IIT Delhi serves as a vital hub for research and innovation in the transportation and pavement construction industry. By leveraging cutting-edge software and methodologies, the lab contributes to the advancement of traffic management, planning, simulation and sustainable and efficient pavement construction practices. By bringing academic research with practical applications, the laboratory at IIT Delhi reinforces its commitment to excellence, sustainability, and global leadership in civil engineering.

Faculty Members(5)

Prof. R. R. Kalaga	Areas of Interest: Mass Transit Planning, Traffic Flow Modelling and Traffic Safety E-mail: rrkalaga[at]civil.iitd.ac.in
Prof. A. K. Swamy	Areas of Interest: Modelling Behaviour of Asphaltic Materials, Continuum Damage Modelling, Pavement Engineering, Rheology, Recycling of Pavement Materials E-mail: akswamy[at]civil.iitd.ac.in
Prof. Manoj M.	Areas of Interest: Transportation Planning, Activity/Travel Demand Modelling, Long-Term Mobility Decisions, Travel Behaviour Data Collection, Built Environment and Travel Behaviour, Econometric Modelling E-mail: manojm[at]civil.iitd.ac.in
Prof. Nezamuddin	Areas of Interest: Transportation Network Analysis, Transportation Logistics and Optimization, Traffic Operations, Intelligent Transportation Systems E-mail: nezam[at]civil.iitd.ac.in
Prof. Pramesh Kumar	Areas of Interest: Settlement in Landfills, Gas Generation from Landfills, GIS Based Landfill Management, Bioreactor Landfill, Infiltration Characteristics of Different Vegetation and Landuse, Watershed Management, Water Contamination and Remediation, Open Channel Hydraulics, Contaminant Hydrology E-mail: chakma[at]civil.iitd.ac.in