Research Work
“Feras Naser decided to return to Academia so he can be surrounded by a supportive community, he can pursue his research interests and academic work in an enriching and supportive environment.”
Feras Naser
Research Projects & Interests
Multi Agent Systems and Agentic AI for Rail Infrastructure Managment
Railway systems operations consist of complex, interacting subsystems. Various organizations—such as infrastructure owners and train operating companies—along with key stakeholders like passengers and contractors, hold competing interests and conflicting demands.
Capturing this complexity effectively to optimize for the lowest whole-system life cycle cost requires specialized modeling techniques. Multi-Agent Systems and Agentic AI, combined with mathematical optimization methods, provide a robust framework for modeling these decentralized interactions to achieve optimal whole-system life cycle costs.
That said, this approach inherently relies on modeling operational uncertainty and monetizing non-monetary variables, including safety, risk, and political trust.
Week 1 – Understanding the Scope of this research and the tools that might be used in it
Robust Railway Intervention Planning and Resources Forecasting under uncertainty
Railway intervention planning impacts various types of assets, ranging from bridges and tunnels to rails, ballasted tracks, and signaling systems. Understanding the exact condition of these infrastructure assets carries a high level of uncertainty, requiring decision-making under uncertain conditions. In this research, we developed uncertainty-aware optimization techniques in order to deliver robust railway intervention planning
Week 2 – a focus on uncertainty characterization & propagation and the original research of managing Railway intervention Planning Under Uncertainty.
A New Infrastructure Vision for Bangladesh Railways
Despite significant capital expenditure to expand the rail network, Bangladesh Railway’s freight modal share continues to decline. Freight operations remain hindered by low operating speeds stemming from inadequate reliability-centered maintenance, leaving newly introduced services substantially underutilized.
To reverse this trajectory, Bangladesh Railway must establish an independent strategic vision that prioritizes internal objectives over conflicting donor guidance. The organization should focus on institutionalizing reliability-based maintenance, restructuring service offerings, and upskilling human capital. Implementing this structured roadmap will enable the railway to modernize operations and restore sustainable freight growth.
Week 3 – Cocreation Workshop, this workshop has happened as part of Building A Rail Research Group cocreation workshop which happens on the 2nd and fourth Tuesday of every month.
Feras Naser
Ataul Haque Bhuiyan MRailEI
Syed Sadiq
World Rail Infrastructure Management Practice
Strategic Vision for Bangladesh Railways 1
Strategic Vision for Bangladesh Railway 2