Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) student awarded Best Technical Paper Award at 11th MRC 2022

Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES) Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) student Victor Low Jian Ming was recently awarded the “Best Technical Paper Award” at the 11th Malaysian Road Conference and Exhibition (MRC) 2022 and 4th International Road Federation (IRF) Asia-Pacific Regional Congress, jointly organised by the Ministry of Works of Malaysia, Public Works Department of Malaysia (PWD), the Malaysian Highway Authority, Road Engineering Association of Malaysia (REAM) and IRF, in collaboration with the Construction Industry Development Board of Malaysia (CIDB) and the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS), from 11 to 13 October 2022.

Victor Low and his team were awarded RM1,500 and certificates for their joint effort in contributing to the Malaysian scientific cause.

The MRC serves as a national and regional platform for Malaysian researchers to present their research findings and exchange ideas on cutting-edge technologies relating to the development, construction, management, and maintenance of road infrastructure. One of the main objectives of the award is to encourage greater participation of Malaysian researchers.

“‘Persistence is the quality of winners. Successful people never give up.’ Persistence in research is the key that makes our research findings stand out from the others. The new ideas that we proposed would not be possible without passion and perseverance in the research study. Winning this award makes me think that all of my efforts paid off and the ideas delivered are affirmed. It also motivates me to deliver more findings in the future for the benefit of the communities,” Victor Low said.

He thanked his supervisors, saying, “I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Ir Prof Dr Khoo Hooi Ling, and co-supervisors Ts Dr Teoh Lay Eng and Dr Khoo Wooi Chen (from Sunway University) for giving me the opportunity to join this competition. Without their insightful comments and suggestions, continuous support and patience, winning this award would not be possible.” He added, “I also obtained the UTAR Research Scholarship Scheme for my study. Without the funding, it would not be possible for me to pay full attention to discovering the research findings which enabled me to join the competition.”

The award-winning research paper titled “Application of mixture autoregressive models for intermediate-to-long term bus section travel time prediction”, was written by Victor Low Jian Ming, LKC FES academics Prof Dr Ir Khoo Hooi Ling and Ts Dr Teoh Lay Eng; and Sunway University academic Dr Khoo Wooi Chen. It proposed the mixture autoregressive model (MAR) for bus travel time modelling and prediction, aiming to improve efficiency and accuracy in intermediate-to-long-term data of public bus transportation. Furthermore, a travel time variability heatmap was constructed using the bus reliability indexes developed in the research. The heatmap can be used as a source of information to represent the overall travel time variability of each bus route which allows the passenger to plan their departure and arrival more accurately during bus travelling.

The research is in line with Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. It promotes safer and greener travel by improving the performance of the bus transit system. It will attract higher utility of public transportation and reduce private vehicle dependency which in turn mitigate traffic congestion issues in cities.