The International Road Federation (IRF) Fellowship Program offers university graduate engineers and transportation professionals, from around the world, a grant toward their study in bettering roads and road networking in their country. Fellows of the IRF Fellowship Program have gone on to become leaders and government officials, strengthening road networks. USC is a university member of the IRF Fellowship Program, and several students have received IRF Fellowships to attend University of Southern California.

IRF Fellows participate in the IRF’s Road Scholar Program, which is held in Washington DC in conjunction with the annual meetings of the Transportation Research Board, and which allows Fellows to develop a better understanding of the transportation industry, leadership, and the benefits of the IRF Fellowship Program.  In addition university members of the IRF Fellowship Program are able to designate especially qualified, non-Fellowship students to attend the Road Scholar Program.  USC’s Viterbi School recommended MSCE transportation engineering student Arash Behestia for the 2012 Road Scholar Program, Behestian wishes to work in Urban Transit/Traffic and Intelligent Transportation Systems to develop Intelligent Transportation Systems applications in Iran, his home country. “By improving the current transportation policy, I believe Iran would be faced with safer/greener roads,” says Behestian. He reports that his participation in the Road Scholar Program taught him about other countries’ experiences with policy and infrastructure, and will help him find the solutions for problems facing Iran’s transportation system.  He reports that knowledge from others’ experiences and expertise has provided him with a stronger sense of optimism for achieving safer and greener roads in his country.

“Transportation System Management is a crucial issue for all metropolitan areas in developing countries,” says Behestian. “Transportation systems in my homeland have failed to handle the ever-increasing volume of traffic. Here is an equation: On one side you have 14 million people living in the most polluted city in world who have been deprived of safe roads for decades, producing a huge number of casualties.  On other side, there is a solution to help them.  I believe that finding the answer to this problem could be straight forward, though it might not be simple to implement.”