Sekhar Somenahalli, Ph.D. - Study at UniSA - University of South ...

Sekhar Somenahalli, Ph.D.
School of NBE, Office: +618-83021855
University of South Australia Fax : +618-83021880
GPO Box 2471, Adelaide Home: +618-83675350
South Australia -5001 Mobile: +61-0412225354
sekhar.somenhalli@unisa.edu.au
Key areas of strength
Somenahalli currently teaches courses related to Transportation Planning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He has over
five years of consulting experience (successfully completed many urban transport projects in India) and over 12 years of teaching and
research experience and worked in India, Malaysia and Australia. His key areas of strength include Geographic Information Systems
(GIS), Transportation Planning, Public Transport Service Planning, Transport Demand Modeling, Traffic Management and Traffic
Control.
Educational qualifications
Degree Board/University Year
Bachelor of Engineering (Civil)
Bangalore University,
Bangalore, India
1983-88 (Uni. First Rank)
Master’s Degree in
School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India 1992-94 (Second Rank)
Transport Planning *
PhD **
University of South Australia,
Adelaide, Australia
July 99-Oct 02
Higher Education***
Graduate Certificate
Queensland University of Technology
July 05 – July 07
(Distinction)
* Full time studies sponsored by the employer, ** With Scholarship, *** Part time (online) with Scholarship
Employment record
Year Designation Organisation
1989 – 94 Traffic Engineer RITES – A Govt. of India Consulting firm
1994 – 96 Assistant Manager RITES – A Govt. of India Consulting firm
1996 – 99
1999 - 02
2003- current
Lecturer
PhD Student/research staff
Lecturer
University of Malaya, Kuala-Lumpur,
University of South Australia, Adelaide
University of South Australia, Adelaide
Note: RITES stands for Rail India Technical and Economic Services, A Govt. of India Undertaking
Recent Awards/Grants/Expert Talks
• Won an Endeavour India post doctoral Research Fellowship(2007)
• Received 2006 Supported Teacher Award. These awards are being granted to academic staff across the University in
recognition of achievements of above average student evaluation.
• Divisional Research Management Committee awarded (in 2006) funding ($8981) for Early Career Researchers small
grant for my research project titled ‘Development of Bicycle Level of Service (LOS) Performance measures for Adelaide
• Received 2005 Supported Teacher Award. These awards are being granted to academic staff across the University in
recognition of achievements of above average student evaluation.
• Divisional Research Management Committee awarded (in 2005) funding ($5633) for Early Career Researchers small
grant for my research project titled ‘Improving Public Transport Options for Older Persons – A case study – Adelaide
• Divisional Research Management Committee awarded (in 2004) funding ($7000) for Early Career Researchers small
grant for my research project titled ‘Multi-criteria optimisation approach for planning a new transit route using Geographic
Information Systems’.
• University of South Australia Research Services of Uni. SA Awarded grant for three years (2003 to 2006) through
‘Early Career Researchers Supported Researcher Scheme’
• Delivered expert talk (invited) in an international workshop conducted by Premier Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai,
India in December 2006.
1

Current research activities
PhD supervision
• Successfully (completion, 2006) co supervised a PhD candidate whose research topic title is ‘The neighbourhood form and
its urban design quality; the analysis of the effects on residents travel behaviour: Case studies of four Adelaide suburbs ’
• Currently co-supervising a PhD candidate whose research topic title is ‘The development of Malaysian Highway – Rail Level
(HRLC) crossing safety system
GIS Final year project supervision
• I have recently supervised two projects. One is related to use of GIS in understanding bicycle Level of Service and another is
locating new bus interchange using GIS and fuzzy logic.
Australian Research Council (ARC) grant research project
• I have recently worked on an ARC research project related to network vulnerability. I developed accessibility and
remoteness indices.
Ongoing other research grants projects
• Improving Public Transport Options for Older Persons – A case study – Adelaide
• Development of bicycle Level of Service (LOS) performance measures for Adelaide
Professional Experience in Australia-Research, Teaching and Consulting (1999-till date)
Lecturer, Research Staff member and PhD Student, School of Natural and Built Environments, Uni. SA
Subject
Teaching
Nature of duties
I am currently teaching number of GIS courses at both undergraduate and post graduate level and Transportation
courses for post graduate students in the School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South
Australia.
Previous
Projects
(Consultancy
& Research)
Logistics Research - Theory and Practices – Project from Department of Defence (2005)
Land Operations Division (LOD) of Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) is developing a
research program to focus its support to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Logistics, particularly Land Force
Logistics. To this end, DSTO needed to understand the state of art in the Logistics science and technology. The
Transport Systems Centre (TSC) of University of South Australia (UniSA) was requested to conduct a
comprehensive survey of the Logistics sciences in order to report the theories and practices of commercial and
military logistics. My role was to review the state of art of logistics in military and prepare a report on logistics
activities in military operations during peace time, operational time and special events times.
Overseas Teaching assignment (2004)
The University of South Australia (UniSA) has been contracted by Flinders Consulting Pty Ltd to provide Land
Administration and Management training to state government employees in Sarawak, Malaysia. Various staff
members of Uni. SA and other teams are involved in this program. In this connection, in July 2004, I visited
Kuching (capital city of Sarawak state in Malaysia) to train the state govt employees in GIS, which is a core
component of Module titled ‘Technologies for land information and landuse management’.
Earlier projects ( 2002-2003)
Previous to this research, I have worked on a project which involved the development of GIS/GPS database for a
project from Victor Harbor council, South Australia. Additionally, I also worked on a research project (ARC-
SPIRT) related to our understanding of how planning policies which seek to influence the characteristics of land
uses and activities can promote changes in travel behaviour towards more ’sustainable transport’, with particular
reference to metropolitan corridors. My role in this project was in the development of transit coverage analysis
using GIS for the North West Corridor of Adelaide.
Supervised eight students in their final year GIS projects.
Currently co-supervising PhD candidate whose topic is related to GIS and Urban planning.
PhD Research
(July 99 –
July 02)
PhD was awarded for my thesis titled Transit Service Area and Route Coverage Analysis using Geographic
Information Systems that contained new methods to effectively utilise the census data using Geographic
Information Systems for the transit route coverage, level of service, and patronage analysis. It presented a
methodology that enables transit operators to quickly analyse the transit service areas (GIS tools are developed
using Avenue, a GIS programming language), and to estimate the transit patronages at individual route level.
2

Professional Experience in Malaysia-Research, Teaching and Consulting (1996-1999)
Lecturer, Dept.of Civil Engineering, University Malaya, Kuala-Lumpur, Malaysia
Subject
Teaching
Consultancy
Projects
Research
Nature of duties
Taught Transportation Planning, Traffic Engineering, Survey and Soil Mechanics subjects for final, third and
second year Civil Engineering students respectively. The role involved, development and delivery of lectures,
conduct practicals and evaluation of students performance through assignments and exams.
Key member of a three member team (Transport Research Group- TRG) that
• studied the traffic impact project for a proposed new road linking two highways using EMME/2
software
• developed a parking plan for the University Malaya Hospital in Kuala-Lumpur.
Developed volume/delay functions on the auto network links for Kula Lumpur and also developed parameters
for estimating the value of travel time used in the economic analysis of transport projects. Supervised more
than ten thesis for the final year engineering students.
Professional Experience in India - Consulting (1989-1996)
Assistant Manager and Traffic Engineer - Urban Transport Division, RITES, 27, Barakambha Rd, New Delhi
S.No Project Title & Client Year Role
1 Traffic management plan for four towns- Town Planning
Unit of Tamilnadu
2 Formation of Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority
(UMTA)-State government (Tamilnadu)
3 Updating study for extension of Luz Taramani section
of Mass Rapid Transit System in Madras –Tamilnadu
state government
4 Comprehensive Traffic and Transportation Study for
Madras-Madras Development Authority (World Bank
aided)
5 Delhi Metropolitan Area Study – New Delhi Municipal
Corporation
From Aug.95
to June 96
From Jan.95
to July 95
From Jan.94
to Dec.95
From Oct.91
to Dec.94
From March
91 to Sept.91
• Project proposal,
• Reconnaissance survey,
• Inception report.
• Organisational structure,
• Alternative forms,
• Functions.
• Corridor analysis,
• Alternative alignments,
• System design,
• Traffic forecasting.
• Land use transport models,
• Operation model (SATURN),
• Geometric design,
• Economical evaluation.
• Public transport terminal and depot
facilities.
6 Ring rail study for Delhi-Delhi Development Authority From Nov.90
to Feb. 91
• Traffic circulation and parking plans
around ring rail stations.
7 Comprehensive Transport Plan for Jammu- Jammu
Development Authority
8 Srinagar Urban Transport study-Srinagar Development
Authority
9 Bangalore Transport Project-Bangalore Development
authority
(World Bank aided)
From June 90
to May 91
From Sept. 89
to May 91
From Jan. 89
to July 89
• Traffic Management,
• Transport demand model with
assistance from Roorkee University.
• Traffic management,
• Household data analysis,
• Traffic forecast.
• Organising surveys,
• Coordinated Signal design using
TRANSYT software.
3

Software experience till date
Subject
GIS software
Transportation Planning
Traffic Engineering
Database
Highway design
Programming
Software
ArcGIS, ArcView 3,TransCAD, MAPINFO
Emme/2, TransCAD and SATURN;
SIDRA, TRANSYT and OSCADY;
M.S.Access;
MOSS for Windows;
Avenue.
Short Training Courses/Work shops attended (Chronological order starting from recent training)
• Building Geodatbases - ESRI Australia, Adelaide-5 th and17 th February,2008.
• Wworkshop on Logistics and Freight Transport, 22 nd and 23 rd February, Adelaide,2007
• Introduction to ArcIMS - ESRI Australia, Adelaide- 16 th and 17 th February,2006.
• Advanced GIS analysis course – ESRI Australia, Adelaide- 17 th to 19 th October, 2005.
• Early Career Academic Teacher Workshop on February 7 & 8 th 2005 at RMIT, Melbourne
• 4 day training course on ‘CUBE’ software (16 th -19 th November,2004) at UniSA
• Gil Stokes workshop on Grant writing, 6 th , 7 th and 10 th September 2004, City East Campus
• Teaching at UniSA for Sessional Staff program, August- Sept 2003, UniSA, Adelaide
• Supervisor Development Day, 7th April, 2003, Uni SA Underdale Campus, Adelaide.
• Work shop-Using GPS effectively-futures- Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide;
• Work shop- Remote sensing and Innovative Data Capture – Adelaide;
• Advanced GIS Analysis and Modelling-GISCA of Adelaide University, Australia;
• Basic and General Work-Zone Traffic Management -Transport SA, Adelaide;
• Public Transport: Operations and Services Planning-Adelaide, Australia;
• Understanding demographics – Australian Bureau of Statistics, Adelaide, Australia;
• Advanced TransCAD – Transportation GIS Software-Caliper & ENC, KL, Malaysia;
• Moss for Windows - foundation course for design Engineers-Astrasoft, KL, Malaysia;
• Introductory course on-Moving to Moss for Windows-Astrasoft, KL, Malaysia;
• Basic MOSS training for design engineers- Astrasoft Sdn.Bhd, KL, Malaysia;
• Transport System Methods and Analysis - I.I.T - Madras, India;
• Transport policy and Planning - Roorkee University, Roorkee, India.
Publications
Refereed Journal Papers
Somenahalli V C Sekhar and Michael A P Taylor (2007), Road Network Accessibility Issues and Impacts on Regional Australia,
Journal of Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies ISSN 1881-1124, Vol 7, pp 27-28.
Ali Soltani, Frank Primerano, Andrew Allan, Sekhar Somenahalli (2006), Design for Movement: Linking Non-work Travel and
activity Level to Local Urban Design Dimensions, Journal of Urban Design International Volume 11, pp 173-186.
A Soltani, A Allan, S Somenahalli and F Primerano (2006), The Role of Neighbourhood design, Journal of World Transport Policy
and Practice, Volume 13.1, pp 64-78.
Michael A P Taylor, Somenahalli V C Sekhar and Glen M D’Este (2006), Application of accessibility based methods for vulnerability
analysis of strategic road networks, Journal on ‘Networks and Spatial Economics’ a special issue on "Reliability and Emergency
Issues in Transport Network Analysis (ISSN1566-113X (Print) 1572-9427 (Online), Volume 6, Numbers 3-4 Springer Netherlands,
pp-267-291.
Sekhar S. V.C., Yue W.L, and Taylor M.A.P. (2004), An approach to transit path design using GIS, International Journal of Urban
Sciences ( ISSN:1226-5934), 8(1), 2004, 28-39.
Sekhar Somenahalli V.C., Yue W.L, and Taylor M.A.P. (2003), An approach to transit path design using GIS, Journal of Eastern
Asia Society for Transportation Studies.
Sekhar, S.V.C, Coffee. N and Yue. W. L. (2001) Transit Route Area Analysis Using GIS. Journal of Eastern Asia Society for
Transportation Studies, 2001, Vol .4, No. 1 pp. 171 – 185.
Anand S., Sekhar S.V.C., and Karim Mohamed Rehan (1999), Development of Passenger Car Unit (PCU) values for Malaysia.
Journal of Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies (EASTS), Vol 3, No 3, September 1999, pp. 73-80.
4

Anand S., Sekhar S.V.C., and Karim Mohamed Rehan (1997), Development of Land use Transport Models (A case Study). Journal
of Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies (EASTS), Vol 2, No 6, October 1997, pp. 1849-1865.
Sekhar S.V.C., Anand S. and Karim Mohamed Rehan (1997), Comparison of Regression Model and Category Analysis (A case
Study), Journal of Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies (EASTS), Vol 2, No 3,October 1997, pp. 917-929.
Refereed Conference Papers
Somenahalli V C Sekhar and Michael A P Taylor (2007) Road Network Accessibility Issues and Impacts on Regional Australia.
Proceedings of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies conference , 24-27 th September 2007, Dalian, China
Somenahalli V C Sekhar and Michael A P Taylor (2007) Elderly Mobility: Issues, Opinions and Analysis of trip making in Adelaide
In Proceedings of 30 th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), Melbourne , 28-30 September.
Somenahalli V C Sekhar and Michael A P Taylor (2007) Ageing and Transport: Mobility Issues – A case study for Adelaide, In
Proceedings of State of Australian Cities National Conference28 -30 th November- ISB 978-0-646-48194-4, pp 1117-1127.
Ali. Soltani and Sekhar Somenahalli (2005). Household Vehicle Ownership: Does Urban Structure Matter? In Proceedings of 28 th
Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF) conference, Sydney, 28-30 September.
Sekhar Somenahalli., Yue W.L, and Taylor M.A.P. (2004),), A GIS approach to transit buffer problem analysis, in Proceedings of the
Australian Transport Research Forum (ATRF) , September 29 th to October 1st , Adelaide, 2004.
Sekhar Somenahalli V.C., Yue W.L, and Taylor M.A.P. (2003), A Geo-demographic model for route based bus patronage estimation
in a small and medium sized city, in Proceedings of Spatial Sciences Institute conference, 22- 27 September, 2003, Canberra.
Sekhar Somenahalli V.C., Yue W.L, Taylor M.A.P., and Coffee N., (2002), Development of GIS based tools for transit service
analysis, in Proceedings of the joint AURISA and The Institution of Surveyors, Australia conference, 25-30 November, 2002,
Adelaide.
Abstract only Refereed Conference papers
Sekhar Somenahalli (2005), Study of road network accessibility and socio-economic indicators of Australian towns using GIS. In
Proceedings of International Conference on Operations Research Applications in Infrastructure Development, Bangalore, India, 27-
29 December.
Sekhar Somenahalli., and Taylor, M A P (2005). GIS approach to understanding the relationship between road network accessibility
and socio-economic indicators. In Proceedings of 4th Asia-Pacific Transport and the Environment Conference, Xian, P R China, 8-10
November
Sekhar Somenahalli V.C., Yue W.L., Taylor M.A.P., and Coffee N. (2002), Analysis of regional imbalance of quality of bus service
within a city, in Proceedings of European Transport Conference 2002, 9-11 September, 2002 (on CD ROM), Homerton college,
Cambridge.
Sekhar, S.V.C., (2001), An approach to refine the analysis relating to the transit route buffer problem, in Proceedings of the 23rd
Conference of Australian Institute of Transport Research, December 10-12, 2001, Melbourne, pp. 1-18.
Sekhar S.V.C., Taylor M.A.P, Yue W.L and Coffee N. (2001), Analysis of transit system service coverage level of service using GIS
in the Conference Proceedings of the '7th International Conference in Urban Planning and Urban Management 2001'(on CD ROM) at
the University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu) from July 18-21, 2001.
Sekhar S.V.C., (2000), Transit route catchment area analysis using GIS, 22 nd conference of Australian Institutes of Research (CAITR-
2000), 6-8 December 2000, Canberra, Australia.
Sekhar S.V.C., (1999), Transit Service Planning Using GIS, 21st conference of Australian Institutes of Research (CAITR-99), 8-10
December 1999, Brisbane, Australia.
Courses Organised
Organised a course on Transportation Planning-Travel Demand Forecasting Models & Computer Applications for Planners and
Consulting Engineers in the University of Malaya from 14-16 April 1997.
Professional Affiliations
Member of Spatial Science Institute, Australia
Institute of Engineers of India (Membership No: M118398-7)
Institute of Town Planners of India (Membership No: 2001-033)
5