Roads are one of the most important development demands from the North East (NE) Indian States. Density of roads in North East Region (NER) is far less than the national average. NER Vision 2020 and XIth Five Year Plan also emphasize requirement of expansion, maintenance and improvement of the road network at all levels from National Highways (NH) to rural roads and even porter tracks to provide the essential basis for trade and economic development. Even though the road network per capita is significantly higher in NER compared to the rest of the country, the road length per unit area is low, making the accessibility requirement of inhabitants a need to attend to. A. Saurikhia, Senior Scientist & Head, TMBD, CSIR-CRRI, writes on the special needs and strategies for NER and the technology management initiatives.

During 2012-13, there has been a general economic slowdown, and this, along with other external factors, adversely affected the performance of Highway projects in India. Out of total targeted award of 8,100km, NHAI could award only 1,116km of NHDP projects. However the performance on the construction front was much better ? against a target of 3000km, 2702km was achieved. In the year 2011-12, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was able to award only 1,933km of projects as against the target of 9,500km. The Ministry has made sustained efforts to identify the issues ? delay in land acquisition, environment and forest clearances, shortage of equity, management of contracts etc ? that affected the performance of the highways sector and worked out some solutions. The following article by Vijay Chhibber, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, gives an overview of the Indian Highways and the measures taken by the Ministry to speed up the road building activity.

While elaborating on the hurdles in and solution for highway construction, Sudhir Hoshing, CEO (Roads), Reliance Infrastructure, says that in the true spirit of Public Private Partnership, risks and rewards need to be shared by both the parties for ensuring effective implementation. Reliance Infrastructure has a portfolio of 11 road projects in six states, with a total length of 968km.

The ambitious safe corridor project on the 80km stretch from Vetturoad to Adoor near Thiruvananthapuram, one of the most accident-prone stretches in the state has begun. As per the data collected by National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC), the agency carrying out the pilot study on the project, around 1200 accidents happened on the stretch in the past three years. The project, which aims at bringing down the accident rate to zero, will be implemented with financial aid from World Bank by the Kerala State Transport Project, a Kerala PWD programme. The KSTP has set aside `60 crore for carrying out safety projects on the roads coming under its jurisdiction. According to NATPAC Director B G Sreedevi, the project is being implemented with the help of local bodies, police department, motor vehicles department and hospitals in the area. ?Interestingly, when good roads was provided, accidents also showed an increasing trend. Hence a detailed study was done,? said Sreedevi. A Progess Report.

In tune with the guiding principles of Decade of Action on Road Safety, Intelligent Transport Systems can play a very important role in ensuring a safe system approach, writes Dr. Kamal Soi, Vice Chairman, Punjab State Road Safety Council.

The proposed discipline zone for Western Express Highway offers a possibility to examine how much improvement we can achieve in congestion mitigation and traffic calming with better discipline, governance and management of road use. Ashok Datar, Chairman, Mumbai Environmental Social Network, gives an account.

Several manufacturers have announced that they are working on self-driving cars to be introduced in the near future; what are the implications and how soon will they be on our roads? Dr. Luis Willumsen, Director of Luis Willumsen Consultancy and Visiting Professor University College London, looks at the future of self driving autonomous vehicles and how they will impact transport planning, traffic congestion and road accidents in the coming years.

An equal equity Joint venture of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi and IDFC Foundation, Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Limited (DIMTS) provides Urban Transport Infrastructure Project Consultancy and Intelligent Transport System Solutions for Public Transport. In an interview with Trafficinfratech, DIMTS Managing Director and CEO S N Sahai talked about some of the recent ITS initiatives.

John Austin, Managing Consultant, Austin Analytics, the UK, discusses the importance of public transport interchanges in Public Transport, best practices that need to be followed in their design and the benefits.

Public transport projects are often delayed or put on hold for a variety of reasons ? reasons that are often not based on the real problems of the project. Ranjit Gadgil, Programme Director of Pune-based Parisar, takes a look at Cost Benefit Analysis, a tool for evaluating transportation projects.