Background

Bangladesh has undertaken considerable rapid development initiatives by making substantial investments in its surface transportation infrastructure. This includes countrywide construction of new roads, tunnels and rail links, as well as the rehabilitation of existing links and city transportation networks using expressways and mass rapid transits. Only efficient planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance and rehabilitation provide the people with definite outcomes. However, the country’s geological features include a low-lying delta formed by recent deposits on the flood plains of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River system and its hundreds of tributaries, distributaries and water bodies. These features pose a significant challenge to the civil engineers responsible for building and maintaining an uninterrupted countrywide road–rail network. Construction of bridges, flyovers, viaducts and overpasses constructed in densely populated localities must minimize land use and deliver facilities to the people quickly. Such infrastructure assets have the potential to benefit the region because Bangladesh’s advantageous geopolitical boundaries in South Asia and South East Asia could make it a major land transport infrastructure hub in the future. It is within this context that this conference, the fourth in the series, has been scheduled.