About CRRI

Road and road transport infrastructure is essential for socio-economic and technological progress of a nation. R&D efforts provide a key role in developing technologies for construction of better, durable and safer roads and the resulting efficient traffic operation thereon. The Central Road Research Institute, popularly known as CRRI, is the premier national research organization for highways traffic and transport planning and all other allied aspects. It carries out R&D in the areas of road and road transportation and provide highest level of professional consultancy.

CRRI was established in 1952 as a constituent laboratory of the Council of scientific and industrial research (CSIR). The institute is prominently located on Delhi Mathura Road (NH-2) at 5 kms. from Nizamudin Railway Station, in a huge and picturesque complex with a vast and unique variety of infrastructural facilities to undertake research and consultancy activities related to road and runways, traffic and transportation, bridges and geotechnical aspects.

The major R&D programmes of CRRI related to the entire spectrum of pavement design and performance, road condition monitoring, pavement deterioration modeling, maintenance planning and management, pavement management system, landslide management and hazard mitigation, geotechnical investigations & ground improvement techniques, traffic engineering and management and improved transportation planning technology for emerging urban needs. Besides these, applied research in the area of planning and engineering aspects of rural roads, material characterization, pavement evaluation, highway instrumentation, conditioning monitoring and rehabilitation of bridges, design of high embankments & reinforced earth walls, subways & underpass construction, transportation planning, traffic engineering, road safety and environmental problems, form an integral part of the programme of the institute.

Training is an important activity of the institute. CRRI offers several refresher/ training and development programmes designed to suit the requirement of different target groups. More than 25,000 in-service highway engineers have been trained so far at CRRI.

The institute maintains an active liaison with various highway research organizations both in India and abroad for exchange of information and technical expertise. CRRI is also well represented globally at TRB (USA), ARRB (Australia), TRL (UK), World Road Association (PIARC) etc.

The future R&D programmes of CRRI will focus on safe, speedy and efficient road transportation system with minimal total transportation cost per unit of total transportation infrastructure. A multifaceted approach has thus been adopted with an emphasis on system development, characterization and improvement of materials, pavement evaluation, maintenance monitoring, and upgradation of technology for ground improvement and slope stability enhancement and intelligent transport system.

The task ahead is quite challenging with the increase in road traffic both in terms of volume and axle load, new generation of roads, like expressway and heavy duty roads will be built in the near future. This calls for improved methods of road construction, maintenance and management. CRRI is well equipped to meet this new challenge and is all set for giving the highest level of required R&D support to the road development plans in the country and to other highway agencies in the SAARC and the Asia and the pacific region.

CSIR-CRRI on Map