Rejitha Nath

Name: Rejitha Nath

Title: Research student

Affiliation: Monash University

Rejitha is a transport planning enthusiast with academic and work experience in travel demand modelling. Her research interests include network optimisation, simulation and operational modelling in public transport. She is passionate about urban transport sustainability and has ardent interest in developing innovative research queries into solutions with scientific integrity.

Rejitha is currently undertaking her PhD at Monash University on the topic of “Improving Public Transport Timetable Coordination in Melbourne”

Master of Technology, Transportation Engineering, AcSIR, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research-Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI), New Delhi, India (2015)

Bachelor of Technology, Civil-Infrastructure Engineering, SRM University, Chennai, India (2013)

2017 – Runner Up, Graduate Research Poster Award, Innovation Showcase-2017, Faculty of IT, Monash University

2015 – Team member in “SUSTRANS”, a CSIR-CRRI project that received Skoch Order of Merit Award, India’s Best (2015) in Smart Technology, Delhi

2013 – Best Outgoing Student (2009-13), Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, SRM University, Chennai

2010 – Merit Scholarship for academic excellence (Performance based  scholarship award), SRM University, Chennai

SEPT GRIP:

Improving Public Transport Timetable Coordination in Melbourne

There is a growing need to maximise the utility of multimodal public transportation by designing timetables that are as coordinated and reliable as possible. But with multiple trains, trams and buses operating at any given time in Melbourne, the logistics are complex.

This research focuses on developing a holistic optimisation tool that improves the efficiency of public transport timetables. It aims to model timetable coordination as a constraint based optimisation problem, incorporating a comprehensive set of real world constraints that address the practical concerns of public transport users and schedulers alike. It broadly explores the following:

  • What are the limitations with existing approaches in efficiently coordinating timetables?
  • Can a holistic, adaptive algorithm be developed to deliver improved scheduling opportunities than the existing tools for local and network level operations?
  • How well can we optimise timetable coordination and cost efficiency simultaneously and make transfers more convenient and reliable?
  • What are the impacts of improved coordination on public transport ridership?

The outcome from this research intends to aid transit agencies with faster decision making-to realise accurate, realistic and cost-efficient timetable solutions. It ultimately seeks to achieve a synergy between scheduling in principle and scheduling in practice.

This project is part of the Sustainable and Effective Public Transport – Graduate Research Industry Partnership (SEPT-GRIP) and is supervised by Professor Mark Wallace and Professor Graham Currie with industry supervision from Chris Loader. The project is being undertaken by Rejitha Nath sponsored by Transport for Victoria and Monash University.

SEPT-GRIP

Publications

  1. Ravi Sekhar, Ch., Rejitha, N., and Madhu, E. (June, 2017). Development and evaluation of an integrated transportation system: a case study of Delhi. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers – Transport, ISSN 0965-092X. (https://doi.org/10.1680/jtran.16.00003)

Conference Papers

  1. Rejitha, N., Ravi Sekhar, Ch., and Madhu, E. (2015). Development of Four Stage Travel Demand Model and Identification of Feeder Route for the NCT of Delhi, In 11th EASTS Conference,  Cebu, Philippines.
  2. Rejitha, N., Ravi Sekhar, Ch., and Madhu, E. (2015). Evaluation of Policy Measures in View of Promoting Sustainable Transportation System. Transport Research Procedia, 14th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR), Shanghai, China (In press).