SLAice

Sri Lanka Association of Institution of Civil Engineers

INTRODUCTION TO METRO RAIL

An Event conducted jointly with the IESL Civil Engineering
Sectional Committee (CESC)

PRESENTER: Eng. Shantha Weerasinghe, BSc Eng. CEng. MIET

DATE: Thursday the 17th November 2016 TIME: 17.00 HOURS

LOCATION: HOTEL RAMADA Colombo No. 30, Sir Mohamed

Macan Mawatha, Colombo 00300
REGISTRATION FEE: FREE for SLAICE & IESL Members
Participation is strictly by prior registration
Please email the Secretary or Assistant Secretary of SLAice to
register.
Secretary - Dr. Kamal Laksiri: secretaryslaice@gmail.com
Assistant Secretary - Eng. M. Ramanasundaran: engmaha.ramana@gmail.com
 EVENT SPONSOR:

Presenters Profile

Eng. Shantha Weerasinghe, BSc Eng. CEng. MIET

After graduating in Electrical Engineering from University of Moratuwa in 1990,

Eng. Shantha has served in a private firm and CEB until leaving Sri Lanka for Hong
Kong in 1994. His 22 years overseas career since then has primarily been spent
on mega transportation construction projects. In Hong Kong, he has been a senior
project engineer for Balfour Beatty in the New Hong Kong Airport project and
KCRC West Rail Project. Upon joining Parsons Brinkerhoff International in Taiwan,
he has provided MEP design support to Taiwan High Speed Rail Project for 4 years
and later joined the British Consultancy W S Atkins in Dubai to lead electrical
designs of Dubai Metro, Makkah Metro, Kolkata Metro UG stations, Lusail LRT
prelim designs, Etihad Rail, UAEs Al Ain MRO Aircraft Maintenance Facility,
Jeddah New Airport (KAIA) etc.
Since joining Hyder in August 2013, he has been busy in tender bidding of GCC rail
projects such as Riyadh Metro, Doha Metro, Lusail Light Rail Depot & Stations,
UAEs Etihad Rail Stage 2 and Jeddah Public Transportation Project, which consists
of more than 70 metro stations. He is currently serving as MEP design manager
for Architectural Provisional Sum Works of Doha Metro Red Line South
Underground package and Gold Line Underground package having a total of 15
UG stations.

SYNOPSIS
Urbanization is exploding metropolitan areas around the globe with ever growing
population. This has challenged transportation infrastructure planners,
municipalities and governments to find long lasting solutions to ever growing
traffic congestions, growing number of private motor vehicles entering roads,
high fuel demand, pollution, lost productivity and time etc. Whilst buses, taxis and
private vehicles have been coping with the transport demand in the past, major
cities with couple of million residents or commuters are increasingly finding it
difficult to continue with these resources anymore. It is in this backdrop that the
passenger rail transportation within city limits has been chosen by many countries
as best means of meeting their metropolitan transport needs. Light rail, heavy or
mass transit rail (also called metro) and commuter rail systems have therefore
become commonplace in many developed as well as developing countries. Asia is
currently witnessing a huge growth in new light rail and mass transit rail networks
whilst Sri Lanka is also considering a LRT system for Colombo under urban
transport development plan of Western Region Megapolis.