Modern cities depend on invisible infrastructure. Beneath platforms and behind station walls, thousands of interconnected systems coordinate surveillance, communications, accessibility, and emergency response. For public transportation networks operating at enormous scale, introducing new technology is never as simple as installation. It requires rigorous validation, systems integration discipline, and an uncompromising commitment to safety.
Savni Sandbhor, a Senior IEEE member and communications, network, and systems integration Senior Project Manager engineer, has built her career in precisely this environment. With more than a decade of experience delivering mission critical infrastructure for one of the largest public transportation systems in the United States, her work operates at the intersection of advanced network engineering, life safety systems, and large scale capital modernization.
“The central challenge,” Sandbhor explains, “is introducing modern technology into legacy transit systems without disrupting service or compromising safety. Every system must be proven, maintainable, and usable by thousands of operational staff before it can go live.”
Bridging Innovation and Legacy Infrastructure
Public transit agencies function under strict regulatory, safety, and reliability constraints. Infrastructure must operate continuously for decades, even as communications, networking, and surveillance technologies evolve rapidly. Bridging that gap requires more than technical knowledge. It demands structured systems integration, disciplined testing, and effective change management.
Throughout her career, Sandbhor has been entrusted with high impact responsibilities across capital construction, ADA compliance initiatives, and station modernization programs. Her technical portfolio includes IP based CCTV and video surveillance systems, Passenger Station Local Area Networks, public address systems, intercom and emergency elevator two way communication systems, telephone infrastructure, and critical power systems that support life safety and emergency operations.
Her expertise in mission-critical infrastructure systems has been recognized beyond project delivery. Sandbhor serves as a SARCouncil Editorial Board Member at the Journal of Economics Intelligence Technology and at the Journal of Public Administration and Management, where she contributes to advancing industry standards and best practices in transportation systems engineering.
These systems enable real time situational awareness and emergency response in dense, high traffic environments serving approximately 1.195 billion passengers annually. The scale alone elevates the stakes of every engineering decision.
“When you are working in live transit conditions, redundancy and failover are not optional features,” she says. “They are fundamental design requirements.”
Systems Integration in Live Environments
Savni’s work is distinguished by her role as a systems integrator within active rail systems. Engineering decisions must account for interoperability across multiple vendors, uninterrupted service during construction, and long term maintainability.
She has led engineering design, integration, commissioning, and place in service of communications systems across more than a hundred subway stations, including the deployment and integration of over one thousand networked surveillance devices. Her responsibilities routinely include network architecture coordination, IP addressing strategies, switch configuration, acceptance testing, system validation, and cross discipline coordination with construction and electrical teams.
Her leadership extends beyond technical design. As Senior Project Manager, she oversees project engineers, technicians, and field electricians across concurrent contracts. She assigns engineering scopes, provides technical direction, manages risk mitigation, and ensures compliance with rigorous safety and performance standards.
This integration of design oversight and field execution reduces downstream operational risk and enables predictable delivery of highly complex infrastructure programs.
Advancing Accessibility at Scale
One of Sandbhor’s most significant recent assignments has been Contract A37151, a design build accessibility program spanning eight stations across the five boroughs of New York City from 2021 to 2025.
The project introduced full accessibility upgrades, including the installation and commissioning of eighteen elevators across eight active stations. Managing multiple sites in parallel within compressed timelines presented substantial logistical and engineering challenges. Stations and elevator systems were phased by type and complexity to meet strict deadlines while maintaining safe operations in live environments.
Coordinating communications, network integration, emergency systems, and elevator two way communication systems across these stations required synchronized scheduling, continuous validation, and disciplined acceptance testing prior to place in service.
The impact is tangible. The project upgraded eight stations to full ADA accessibility, expanding safe and equitable transit access to millions of New Yorkers. In a system that serves over a billion passenger trips annually, such improvements significantly enhance mobility, safety, and independence for riders with disabilities.
Engineering for Public Value
Collectively, the projects Sandbhor has supported represent more than $100 million in capital investment and serve stations that account for over 600 million cumulative passenger trips. Yet the true significance of her work lies not only in scale, but in resilience.
Transit systems must remain stable for decades. Technology changes rapidly. Engineering decisions made today must still function reliably under tomorrow’s conditions. Sandbhor regularly participates in communications bulletins, cable routing and splicing reviews, constructability evaluations, and network topology assessments to ensure long term maintainability and operational clarity.
“The goal is not simply to install modern systems,” she notes. “It is to ensure they integrate seamlessly into a workforce and infrastructure that must operate safely every single day.”
By enabling the careful adoption of modern surveillance, communications, and safety systems, Savni Sandbhor’s work strengthens passenger safety, improves accessibility, enhances emergency response capabilities, and reinforces public trust in essential infrastructure.
In one of the busiest transit networks in the world, reliability is not abstract. It is measured in millions of daily journeys completed safely. Through disciplined systems integration and sustained technical leadership, Sandbhor continues to ensure that innovation enhances service without introducing risk, delivering infrastructure aligned with long term public value for both today’s riders and future generations.
