The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad will establish a Transportation Research and Innovation Hub (TRI HUB) at its campus to help develop contemporary technologies for the National Highways of India, said the institute in a statement. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between IIT-H and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which falls under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to set up the TRI HUB, which will be a Centre of Excellence. 

The initiative will help develop new technologies in pavements and bridge infrastructure, said officials from the NHAI. These will be a part of the 10 innovative projects that will be undertaken at the centre in order to provide sustainable infrastructure for the country's highways. 

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Civil Engineering professor at IIT-H, Prof Sireesh Saride will be the Chair of the TRI HUB. He expressed confidence that the projects will be delivered in time, and will aid in the construction of smart and sustainable highways. "The new methodologies, including geosynthetics, reclaimed materials, glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP), rebars for bridges and pavements, and retrofitting strategies for aging bridges, among other solutions, are going to provide long-lasting and sustainable highway infrastructure for smart Indian Highways," he said, according to a statement by IIT-H.

Prof Saride will be joined by five other professors from the institute in order to work on the ten projects. Prof Suriya Prakash S, Prof Umashankar B, Prof Mahendra Kumar Madhavan, Dr Munwar Basha and Dr Anil Agarwal make up that list. 

IIT-H's Director Prof BS Murty remarked that the centre will complement the test bed for the Technology Innovation Hub for Autonomous Navigation and Data Acquisition Systems (TiHAN), which was recently inaugurated at the institute and, thus, contribute to the development of innovative technologies in the field of transportation.