The Transportation Research Group of India (TRG) held the 7th edition of its flagship conference in Surat, India on December 17-20, 2023 at Dream Festiva Restaurant & Banquets, Surat. The objective of the conference was to create and provide a forum within India to interchange ideas among researchers, educators, practitioners, managers, and policy-makers in transportation in India and around the world. The conference, organized by Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), promoted a wide spectrum of topics related to transportation of people and freight.
The conference saw a number of keynote speakers comprising some of the most eminent researchers in Transportation Engineering from around the world, including Prof. Kumares C. Sinha (Purdue University), Prof. Chandra R. Bhat (The University of Texas at Austin), Prof. Shashi Nambisan (UNLV), Prof. K V Krishna Rao (IIT Bombay), Prof. Animesh Das (IIT Kanpur), and others. Over 300 technical papers were received at the conference, which were presented in about two dozen technical sessions on various themes.
The conference also included a technical site visit to a section of National Highway 53, which is made using steel slag, as well as a plant of steel giant Arcelor Mittal – Nippon Steel (AMNS) Ltd.
Two concrete pavements related papers received top honors at the conference. Dr. Sushobhan Sen, ISCP Board Member and Co-Director of Communications, and his students Mr Avinash Jha and Ms Bhabya Thakur from IIT Gandhinagar received the Best Paper Award from the Technical Committee of Pavements and Materials for their paper on “Thermal effects in jointed plain concrete pavements in Gujarat and Rajasthan: A comparison with IRC:58“. Dr. GD Ransinchung RN and his student Mr. C Chintada from IIT Roorkee received the best poster award in the category of pavement and materials for their work on characterizing the micromechanical properties of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) for rigid pavements.