Akhilesh Srivastava, Chief General Manager (CGM) of IT & Highway Operations, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), will represent India at the upcoming 4th annual Roads & Highways forum in Singapore in April, 2018. The assembly is being jointly organised by the International Road Federation (Geneva, Switzerland) and Marcus Evans Group.
The three-day global congress – being held from 9th April, 2018 to 11th April, 2018 – will accommodate more than 20 key stakeholders and international dignitaries and experts from the sector. With a hard focus on civil engineering, the delegates will discuss the milestones achieved by their respective countries in road infrastructure, their impact on trade relations and economy of those countries, and the challenges involved.
The schedule of the forum spread over three days is segregated into several segments, broadly categorised into plenary sessions, panel discussions, industrial tours, keynote presentations and discussions, and case studies and key international presentations. CGM Akhilesh Srivastava, the delegate from India, will deliver in the conclave a key presentation on the ongoing highways modernisation program in the country by the Central government and the NHAI.
As a brief insight, the highways initiative involves several distinct subprojects, which are: Wayside Amenities (WSA), Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), Road Asset Management System (RAMS), and UAVs and LiDARs for highway project management, and others.
The WSA is being constructed to provide highway motorists with advanced civic amenities on national highways. ETCs are being installed at Toll gantries on national highways to digitalise and automate toll transactions. The ATMS has been commissioned to monitor highway traffic and provide emergency services to mitigate all kinds of highways mishaps and accidents.
The RAMS acts as a singular database to retrieve, analyse, store, and process all highway-related data. UAVs and LiDARs have been deployed to monitor and regulate and prepare DPRs for highway projects, and help the ATMS and the RAMS gather and process data.
The CGM – along with a delegate from a World Bank facility in Singapore – will also talk about the impact the People’s Republic of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) project will have on Asia. The OBOR is China’s proposed intercontinental roadway and maritime trade network that aims to connect Eurasian nations and revive the erstwhile Silk Road. CGM Srivastava and his co-speaker will present their assessment of the impact the proposed network will have on the continent.
Other notable topics the 20-plus stakeholders will present and discuss on include China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), latest tolling technologies, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), autonomous roads and vehicles, resolving challenges ahead of PPP projects, latest pavement technologies, future vehicular technology, advanced road safety, Road Asset Management System (RAMS), and much more.
The third day of the global congress will include a post-conference workshop.
The speakers include important officials from governments, regulatory bodies, concessionaires, engineering & construction, financial institutions, etc.
Interested stakeholders can register with Marcus Evans as non-participating members to elicit information useful to their industry and trade, and take part in discussions on the future of roadways and the role they can play in it.