Chandigarh, July 15 -- A Punjab Engineering College (PEC) professor's study on rural road accessibility in Meghalaya's hill terrain was presented at the World Conference on Transport Research in Toulouse, France, held from July 6 to 10.

B Adinarayana, assistant professor in the civil engineering department, presented findings from a model developed to assess how terrain affects access to roads and public services in mountainous rural settlements. The study focused on West Garo Hills district, covering 1,176 rural habitations with a combined population of about 5.01 lakh.

The research combined satellite imagery, digital elevation data, machine learning and stakeholder input to map accessibility across the district, achieving 89.7% accura...