Department of Transport & Logistics Management
Welcome to our department, Ayubowan and Vanakkam. Thank you for visiting our site. If you are a prospective student wanting to look at future careers, we hope you will be attracted by a career in transport & logistics. Please read through our Programs section to get details of our BSc. (Hons) degree in Transport & Logistics Management a 4-year full time program conducted entirely in English language. Or else if you are interested in our post graduate programs, we have MBA, MSc, MPhil and PhDs to offer. If you are already a student here, do read through the material here and get to know all about the department, its staff, the curriculum, its history, vision and mission so that you can fully identify with the ‘TLM family’ that we call ourselves. On the other hand, you may be a visitor wanting to look at our resources, primarily our staff and their expertise, the subjects they team and their engagement in research and in industry. Please read through the CVs for their impressive track record. Whatever your interest, I wish your stay with us one that would fulfil the expectations with which you have visited us.
Our history
The Department of Transport & Logistics Management was inaugurated in Aug 2005. It was set up at the request of the fast-developing transport & logistics industry in Sri Lanka in terms of ensuring that Sri Lankan universities provide the best equipped professionals for the sector. The degree was commenced in the Faculty of Engineering subscribing to all the academic norms of engineering, while having a more management emphasis with analytical base. The intake to the degree program was restricted to students have the same subject eligibility at GCE ALs to do Engineering.
The department and its degree program became the first program in the areas of transport, supply chain and logistics in Sri Lanka’s state university system. It was also among the first undergraduate degree program in transport & logistics in South Asia and even across the world. It was one of the unique programs where it taught transport & logistics as a single subject across different modes of transport as opposed to other programs which taught and still continue to teach only a part of transport or logistics, often confined to land transport, aviation, maritime of international logistics etc. Many other universities both in Sri Lanka as well as internationally now follow this philosophy and degree name.
The first batch of 50 students entered the department in 2006. Industry demand motivated us to increase this to 60 students per year. The curriculum was revised in 2011 and in2016 to fall in line with the fast-developing subject matter in this area. In 2011 we got accreditation of our degree program by the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT). Graduate can become members of the institute on graduation and use the post-nominal MILT. In 2015, the department started its first post graduate program an MBA in Supply Chain Management which runs annually now. We also have over 10 research students, an extensive research consulting program as well as other industry-based interactions described elsewhere on this website. The five-story TLM building was opened on 8th August 2014 which date is considered as the department anniversary.
Our undergraduates have excellent employability and have ventured into different aspects of transport & logistics, across both the private and public sectors. They also have found employment in supply chain, maritime, land transport, logistics, data analytics and aviation sectors. While a majority work for established companies including multinationals, some have been happy to work in small startups and as entrepreneurs. Those pursing PhDs in transport & logistics have entered and some graduated from world’s top ranked universities such as XXXXXXXXXXXX.
As a new department back in 2008 we only had one Senior Staff and a PhD holder- myself. However, we now boast nearly 10 PhDs some of them with TLM first degrees. We have also gradually increased our staff with engineering and TLM based backgrounds in readiness for conversion to an engineering degree in future.