Professor Vinayak Dixit

Professor Vinayak Dixit -  Head of Transnational Ventures -UNSW Sydney, member of the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation, and Director - TRACSLab@UNSW.   His major research focus is on 'risk' involved with transport – how people perceive it, how they make choices and what effect those choices have on the transport system in general. He especially concentrates on factors like safety, efficiency, reliability and emergency evacuation.

To be able to ensure an efficient and safe transport system is Professor Dixit's ultimate priority. However he is ultimately more fascinated about the journey than the destination and finds it fascinating how transport can combine so many factors – economics, social, physical. A lot of his work involves analysing field data, collected by technology like GPS and driving simulators, and using various models to look at behaviour and see what things can influence different behavioural changes.

Professor Dixit also gets a lot of satisfaction out of teaching and mentoring students – watching them as they engage and responding to their behaviour when he starts to lose them. He invests a lot of time placing students in jobs and internships with really interesting and forward thinking companies. In fact, he is proud of the way everyone at rCITI works together as a team, in collaboration, pushing each other to achieve and grow.

Professor Dixit's word of advice to aspiring transport researchers from what he's learned at rCITI so far is to realise the things you don't know and surround yourself with people and a team you trust will get the job done. It seems to be working for him so far!