NED University of Science and Technology will set up a Center of Excellence for Transportation Engineering Research (CETER) Pakistan in collaboration with Transportation Research Institute, Hasselt University of Belgium and Higher Education Commission likely by August 2017.
Dr Sarosh H Lodhi, Vice Chancellor NED University of Science and Technology said:
This Centre would be integral in spreading awareness among masses as well as providing a platform to students to study scientifically about traffic management and gaining advanced knowledge related to it.
The objectives of the center include advancement of transportation engineering and allied discipline research by involving key higher education institutes in Pakistan under three important themes such as travel behavior modeling and simulation, traffic safety and drivers training, tourism promotion and facilitation through managed transportation.
The center will provide platform for converting primary research products into commercial and practice-ready products through its incubation centers with facilitation in development of small scale start-ups and spin-off companies.
It will establish a central point of contact in providing advisory / consultancy services to policy makers and other stakeholders in transportation relevant development projects, traffic rules and regulation developments, drivers training programs, survey and awareness campaigns, etc.
The center will develop and execute joint Master’s, PhD programs along with other outreach activities (Short courses, Workshops, Conferences, Seminars) in collaboration with partner institutes and other stakeholders.
In this regard, the Department of Urban And Infrastructure Engineering of NED University signed a MoU with Transportation Research Institute (IMOB), Hasselt University Belgium.
The MoU also includes the reduction of the tuition fee from 6000 Euros to 600 Euros for students of NED for their Master’s study in IMOB.
Further, the Faculty of IMOB is assisting Urban Engineering for organization of International Conference (IEDC 2017), that is planned for July 2017.
NED University of Science and Technology is one of the leading public sector universities in Pakistan which produced a vast number of scientists and scholars in different disciplines. The university is expanding its focuses on essential and emerging fields including traffic management engineering which is not only important for mega cities but it will be highly useful for emerging development in Pakistan through CPEC.
A similar project was proposed by COMSATS Islamabad to CDA. CDA offered pennies to students and faculty who were behind the proposed project and had completed a pilot project. But CDA in PPP regime (my last info) was willing to pay a US company for a similar job 10 times of what it offered to COMSATS.
Seems nice…Think Transportation has also signed similar kind of MoU. Best of luck to all traffic engineers.