The Delhi transport department and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-D) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday to conduct research and develop technologies that can enhance urban transportation in a sustainable way, in an effort to upgrade the capital’s transportation infrastructure.
In the presence of the IIIT-D director Prof. Ranjan Bos, special commissioner O P Mishra, transport commissioner Ashish Kundra, and deputy commissioner for transportation Vinod Kumar Yadav and registrar Ashok Kumar Solanki, the MoU was signed.
A centre for sustainable mobility (CSM) was also created at IIIT-D in addition to the MoU. Its purpose is to assist the transport department in identifying problem areas and developing a technological roadmap for resolving issues with urban mobility in Delhi.
“Spinning off and promoting companies in the mobility industry as well as giving the Delhi government’s startup strategy a boost is one of the center’s other goals. Additionally, it will work to integrate and analyse data and technology in order to improve public infrastructure, create solutions, and implement them for the department of transportation and its many organisations”, according to authorities.
According to the transportation department, the centre will also act as a starting point for startups looking to support various initiatives to promote technology related to smart mobility, including passenger information systems, multi-modal journey planners, automation tools, and ticketing framework.
The workforce of the transportation department, including Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and Delhi Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation, will also receive technical training from it (DTIDC). As opposed to this, officials from the transport department stated they would collaborate with IIIT-Delhi to find appropriate research topics before jointly submitting the bids to the organisations that would be funding them.
“The IIIT-D team provided technological assistance for several of our ground-breaking efforts, including Open Transit Data, integrating our bus data with Google Maps, and the One Delhi app. Identifying and resolving Delhi’s urban mobility issues requires collaboration with academic institutions and research centres, according to authorities.
