Nikola Bešinović follows Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rainer König as acting head of the Chair of Rail and Public Urban Transport. He retired on 1 April 2022 after 22 years at the faculty.

Dr. Bešinović had been working in Delft since 2012 - first as a doctoral researcher and, following his PhD in Railway Science in 2017, as a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. His PhD thesis "Integrated Capacity Assessment and Timetabling Models for Dense Railway Networks" deals with designing advanced mathematical models and approaches for railway timetabling.

Research focus is an excellent fit for systemic research approach within the faculty

"Given his research focus, Dr. Bešinović is an excellent fit for us and the systemic research approach within our faculty," says Prof. Günther Prokop, Dean of the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. "We are very pleased to have been able to win him over as acting head and thus seamlessly continue and also further develop research and teaching at the chair. Railway operations, railway traffic and railway technology have a long tradition in research and teaching at the faculty. With Dr. Bešinović, new and forward-thinking impulses will certainly be set here".

Nikola Bešinović’ current research interests are to develop analytics and optimization methodologies to promote efficient, reliable, and sustainable transport systems. His main focus is on railway traffic management systems, where he proposes data-driven decision-making approaches to enhance railway operations, train scheduling and driver behaviour. In the process, he also deals with the use of artificial intelligence (AI). He is also interested in new resilient transport concepts, determining critical infrastructure and operations, and impacts of increased transport demand on further technological development of railway systems.

"I am very much looking forward to my work, my new team and the cooperation with my colleagues at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences and beyond at TU Dresden and its partners," says Nikola Bešinović. He sees great potential in the Chair of Rail and Public Urban Transport, which was an important factor in his decision to move to Dresden: "There are clearly development opportunities here to become one of the top professorships in rail transport research in Europe - if not number 1."