01
The
The
Road
I grew up in Ahmedabad. Transport, to me, was just how you got from one place to another. Then I went to a village, and everything I thought I knew collapsed.
Transit · Data · Standards · People
Transport is not about vehicles. It's about access.
Where it started
I was a Research Assistant at IIM Ahmedabad, working on an impact assessment of a rural road built under a government scheme. We were interviewing people in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh: farmers, mothers, young girls. I had a clipboard and a set of questions about road quality and travel time.
"The girls in that village were going to school because a road existed. The ambulance could reach them. The farmers could sell their produce in the city. A whole set of lives had quietly expanded, because of a stretch of tarmac."
Rural impact assessment, India, 2016A road is
never just
asphalt.
What I understood then
Transport isn't about vehicles or routes or data. It's about access: to education, to healthcare, to opportunity, to a life previously out of reach.
What I've been doing since
Building the data pipelines, institutional relationships and product thinking that help Indian cities become genuinely accessible, digitally and physically.
Today I work on GTFS data integration for India at Google Maps. The scale is different. The question is the same: can someone get from where they are to where they need to be, and does the system know about it?
02
Beyond
Beyond
the Data
I don't limit my research to websites. I try to dig deeper: to understand what users actually want, what agencies actually face, what cities actually look like from the ground. These are some of the patterns I keep coming back to.
Data quality India, ongoing
The hardest part of open transit data is never the technical standard. It's the phone call you make to a junior official at a municipal agency who has the data but has never been asked to share it in a format anyone can use.
Institutional trust is infrastructure. You can't skip it.
User research City bus study, CEPT
I spent weeks embedded in transit agency offices, not to analyse their systems but to understand what their day actually looked like. The gaps in the data weren't random. They mapped exactly onto the gaps in their capacity and confidence.
The data gap and the institutional gap are always the same gap.
Product thinking
Three years ago I proposed a community-driven transit data program modelled on Local Guides, for transit stops and routes. The idea didn't move forward. But the problem it was trying to solve still doesn't have a good answer: who maintains the data after the project ends?
The questions that don't get answered are usually the most important ones.
Observation Ahmedabad, daily life
My parents proudly took the bus. My friends proudly avoid it. Somewhere between those two generations, public transport stopped being something people used and started being something people escaped. That shift isn't about the bus. It's about what the bus came to represent.
Fixing public transport is partly a data problem. Mostly it's a dignity problem.
03
Work &
Work &
Experience
Senior Transport Consultant for Google Maps
Cognizant Technology Solutions
Leading GTFS data integration for India and APAC subject matter expert. Translating on-ground transit realities, user feedback and observations into product recommendations for millions of users.
Associate, Public Sector Advisory
PricewaterhouseCoopers · MoRTH
Transit strategy and business development across South East Asia, including 5+ project proposals and the design of a national grant scheme on safe mobility.
Research Associate
CEPT University · MoHUA & World Bank
Structured service and business planning frameworks for city bus services across two Indian cities, optimising route networks and operational efficiency through continuous stakeholder engagement. Policy research on new mobility services, electric transportation, inclusive transport and commuter satisfaction, feeding national capacity building initiatives.
New Mobility Services Intern
Transport Systems Catapult · UK
MaaS strategy and behavioural economics research. Insights adopted into TSC's mobility strategy.
Research Assistant · National Rural Roads
IIM Ahmedabad · NRRDA & World Bank
Where it all started. Supported development of the Monitoring & Evaluation framework for NRRDA's flagship rural roads connectivity programme, in partnership with the World Bank. Worked in close liaison with national user-ministries, state-level agencies and data collection agencies, supervising data collection across all 8 states.
04
Education
MSc Transport & City Planning · Distinction
Bartlett School of Planning, University College London (UCL)
Dissertation on user journey experience and wellbeing in transport.
2017 – 18B.Tech (Hons.) Civil Construction
Faculty of Technology, CEPT University
Thesis on the determinants of performance for metro rail projects in India.
2011 – 16Awards
- Top 10, STAMP Data Innovation Challenge 2019Transit accessibility map for Kochi
- Vakil-Mehta-Sheth Merit MedalHighest grades in the final degree examination
- Best Thesis Award 2016CEPT University
05
Beyond
Beyond
9-5
Reading
I read mostly fiction; stories are how I make sense of systems and people. I just finished The Correspondent and I'm now reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which is exactly as wonderful as it sounds.
Running
I'm training for Hyrox and then the London Marathon 2027. I got selected in the ballot, which feels full circle. I first started running in London during my UCL days, and I'll be going back after 10 years to do it properly. Learning a lot about the gap between planning and doing.
Painting
I used to paint. I think it's still in how I look at cities, always noticing composition, colour, what belongs and what doesn't.
Let's talk
about cities,
data, and
access.
Working on open data, Indian transit ecosystems, urban tech, or just want to compare notes on why public transport deserves better? I'd love to connect.
One last stop: a game
The
Last Mile
A full city grid: a local rail line, three metro lines, five bus routes, a river, two parks, and the old market where B lives. Tap her, pick a ride from the menu that opens, tap where to go. Only walking enters the market. Find the cheap way home.
Level 1 of 3
Tap her on the map and pick a ride from the menu.
Animations are off, so the game is parked. The rest of the site works as usual.