About Us

Dr. Pani and his Indian research team is already actively engaged with the City of Varanasi, India, to optimize public transportation through the NSF S&CC project (US-India Collaboration) CNS-1952011. In particular, the team has collaborated to study the feasibility of ropeway public transport and to show how it can be integrated and operated along with the other modes of public transportation in the city of Varanasi. PI Pani (IIT-BHU) contributes to this thrust with his background in transportation planning, discrete choice modelling of users’ decision-making, and charging infrastructure planning. A key aspect of the work performed by the team in Chattanooga includes the design of models to predict the energy usage of various vehicles (e.g., EVs, ICEVs, hybrids) on public-transit routes and the optimal assignment of various vehicles from a mixed transit fleet to trips that need to be served for a daily transit schedule. A key aspect of the ongoing research for Varanasi public transportation, led by Dr. Pani, focuses on demand forecasting of route-level passenger travel, energy consumption models using battery performance data, and multi-modal fleet optimization for both EV and diesel buses operating in the city.