The ministry of urban development on Monday signed MoUs with IIT Delhi, IIT Chennai, IIT Warangal and CEPT University Ahmedabad for setting up of Center of Excellence (CoE) for Urban Transport Planning and Development.

These institutes would work in the area of urban transport design, planning and development of intelligent traffic system, management of BRT and other aspects of urban transport. The COEs will also focus on applied research and will run post graduate programmes to meet the requirement of highly skilled professional in the field.

These will also impart training to the central and state government officers. Each institute has been assigned specific areas of focus. The CoE at IIT-Delhi would work in areas of Public Transit Planning, design and optimization with special focus on BRT, Integration of urban planning, traffic flow, use of ITS, impact/benefits to environment including NMV and Road Safety factors in Urban areas whereas at IIT-Chennai, it would work in areas of ITS application in Urban Areas, Urban Transport Systems Planning and Urban Transportation Infrastructure Management.

The CoE at NIT-Warangal would work in areas of A Strategy for improving Mass Transit Patronage, Modeling Urban Growth Landuse-Transport Integration, and Development of Capacity Analysis for Urban Streets, ITS based Traffic & Road Safety Mangement System and Modeling & Mapping Environmental Pollution. And at CEPT University-Ahmedabad, it would work in areas of Land use-Transport Integration, Transit Oriented Development, BRT planning and management, Fiscal tools for Urban Transport Management, Transit Impact Assessment, Social and Environmental aspects of urban transit and Sustainable Urban Transport.

The institutes, which will provide technical assistance to the ministry on an on going basis, would be provided the financial assistance for first four years. The total budget allocated for the programme is Rs.31.31 crore.