Roads In Malaysia Research Articles

The effect of aggregate micro and macro texture on pavement skid resistance of Malaysia road network

The effect of aggregate micro and macro texture on pavement skid resistance of Malaysia road network

Motorcyclists Preferred Lane Position on Federal Roads in Malaysia

Motorcycle fatalities comprised of 60% of the total fatalities in Malaysia. Weaving between traffic and speeding are among the contributors to the high motorcycle fatalities and there is not much understanding of the. This study was conducted with the objective to determine the lane preference of motorcyclists within various road cross-section and speed of motorcyclists when using the lanes. The lane usage was recorded with video camera and video was playback to count the count of motorcyclists using their respective lane. As for speed of motorcyclists, spot speed measurement was conducted covertly to avoid affecting motorcyclists’ behaviour. A total of 11 locations with different cross-section designs throughout the Malaysia was identified for observation. The empirical results show that more than 95% of the motorcyclists travelled on the non-exclusive motorcycle lane (NEML) when the NEML is presence at 2 lane single carriageway section. Meanwhile, paved shoulder about 2.2-2.3m wide was found to be used by majority of motorcyclists (75%). Apart from obtaining the lateral travel position of the motorcyclists, the spot speed data were also collected. The speed results revealed that motorcyclists travelled statistical significantly slower on NEML or Paved shoulder (PS) than on main travel lane. The findings of this study conclude that NEML and paved shoulder can affect motorcyclists to ride slower and thus enhance the safety of motorcyclists in term of speed exposure. In addition, the NEML and PS separate motorcyclists from other motorized vehicles which could reduce the risk of crashes of motorcyclists with another vehicle. Even though provision of NEML incurs high costs, however in long term, NEML would prove to be one of the most efficient allocation resources in reducing motorcycle crashes. However, further studies need to be carried out on the use of paved shoulder by motorcyclists.

Speed Behavior of Heterogeneous Traffic on Two-Lane Rural Roads in Malaysia

Highway geometry is a significant factor that affects the efficiency and safety of highway systems. The present study aims to investigate the speed behavior of various vehicle classes on the horizontal alignment of two-lane rural roads. An automatic data collection system based on a pressure sensor was employed to collect the speed of each individual vehicle, vehicle type, and headway at seven sites in each travel direction. The 85th percentile speed under free-flow conditions was used to observe the relationship between the operating speeds of various vehicle classes at consecutive curve points and the effect of the travel direction, time of day, and curve radius on the operating speed of the vehicle. A one-way ANOVA was employed to evaluate whether there is a significant difference in speed on horizontal curves. Then, a Tukey post hoc test was used to assess the significance of the difference in speed across four classes of vehicles. The results revealed that the horizontal curve affects the operating speed for all vehicle classes. A curve radius of less than 500 m, the travel direction, and the time of day are significant variables that affect the speed of all vehicle classes. The findings from this study can provide insight to transportation engineers for safer road design of horizontal curves and to assess traffic safety based on actual speed behavior.

An Assessment of Green Rural Road Criteria and Elements for My Green Rural Road Index: A Case Study in Pengerang, Johor

The rural road networks were built to connect the rural people to the town area or to other destination required by the local residents. Normally the rural roads will be developed to connect or increase the socio-economic opportunity in rural area. The green road is one of the key areas that can be look into to create the sustainable concept based on three key aspects namely social, environmental and economic factors. The main focus of the economy aspect is to increase the profits using more efficient resources, especially materials, improving the quality of life by meeting the national needs of social aspects and protecting the environment from the effects of CO2 emissions and efficient use of natural resources for environmental aspects. Therefore, it is important that stakeholders include sustainability criteria in their projects. The application of a sustainable concept on the road can be assessed by the green road evaluation tool. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to build tools to evaluate and declare green rural roads in Malaysia. The data for this study were gathered through group discussions with road construction experts and distributed questionnaires to identify sustainability factors. Then the data were analysed by factor analysis method using SPSS software. Based on the result, there are five main sustainable criteria: Sustainable Design and Construction, Social and Safety, Energy Efficiency, Environmental and Water Management and Materials and Technology that are included in the development of the green road qualification system. The analysis indicates that the social and safety become the prime criteria among other criteria.

Using Confidence Interval Based Estimation of Relevance (CIBER) to Determine Women's Emotion and Perception on Malaysia Road Environment During COVID-19

Using Confidence Interval Based Estimation of Relevance (CIBER) to Determine Women's Emotion and Perception on Malaysia Road Environment During COVID-19

Box-Jenkins and State Space Model in Forecasting Malaysia Road Accident Cases

Road accident is one of the main causes of death and injury worldwide in this fast-paced modern world. Many developing countries, including Malaysia, are facing serious road accident problems. Forecasting road accident cases has become an important step towards setting the road safety target. Hence, this study aims to develop forecasting models and forecast future trends of monthly road accident cases in Malaysia. The data set on monthly number of accident cases from January 2001 to December 2019 was provided by Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM). Box-Jenkins and State space models were developed using the data under study. The models were then evaluated based on in-sample and out-sample evaluation using lowest root mean square error, mean absolute percentage error and mean absolute error. The results show that the basic structural state space model with trend and seasonal component was the most appropriate model in forecasting road accident cases in Malaysia. The 10-year ahead forecast from January 2020 to December 2030 shows that monthly road accident cases in Malaysia have a constant inclining pattern for each year. It is hoped that the finding from this study could become a reference for the authorities of Malaysia in making recommendations in order to improve road safety and reduce road traffic accidents in Malaysia.

Energy Harvesting on Pavement A Review

Rapid urbanization have increased the Malaysia economy’s dependence on imports of fossil fuels such as oil, petroleum and natural gas for energy output. Excessive use of fossil fuel contributes to high greenhouse gas emissions and this causes climate change and affect the ecological balance. Therefore, the energy generation through harvesting technology is much needed to improve the ecological balance. The process for energy harvesting begins with capturing and accumulating the wasted energy then storing it to be used later. According to a study conducted by the World Economic Forum, roads in Malaysia are among the best in the world on par with Korea and better than some of European countries. Malaysia’s road network that connect the states, district and villages are also grows every year for the convenience of the people. Good road structure throughout Malaysia can give the benefit to the country by used it as energy source. The energy sources that can be exploited from the pavement are solar radiation, mechanical energy generated from moving vehicles or pedestrians and geothermal energy. This paper analyse key issues in pavement energy harvesting and proposing the best energy harvesting technique for Malaysia climate. The keys issues were addressed accordingly and gaps existed in the field was presented. Outcomes of the review is brief in concise manner.

Evaluation of Ground Vibration Resulting from a Heavy Vehicle Passing Over Transverse Rumble Strips: A Case Study in Kluang Road FT050

The transverse rumble strip (TRS) is one of the methods used to improve the driver's alertness to its driving and reduce their speed. However, the presence of a TRS causes unevenness on the road surface and may result in ground vibration when heavy vehicles passes it. This ground vibration may cause discomfort to the people living adjacent to the road. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate the level of ground vibration resulting from heavy vehicles passing over TRS especially on typical federal road in Malaysia which contains high percentage of fast-moving heavy vehicles. Ground vibration assessment study was conducted at federal road of Kluang-Batu Pahat Road (FT050) by using existing heavy vehicles in the traffic stream as study samples. ICP accelerometer and computer software Dewesoft7 have been used to measure and analyse the level of vibration generated. The results indicate heavy vehicles at a speed of 50 km/h, 33 km/h and 24km/h generate ground vibration level of 1.24 mm/s, 2.30 mm/s and 0.76 mm/s respectively. Other factors such as the weight of the heavy vehicles may involve in ground vibration generation mechanism as the results shown that there was no direct correlation between vehicle speed and level of ground vibration. All the generated ground vibration levels were found to be within the allowable limit set by Department of Environment Malaysia (DOE) standard guidelines.

Development of Composite Motorcycling Safety Index along Urban Roads in Malaysia


 
 
 Motorcycle is a preferred private transportation mode (45%) among Malaysian due to its affordability and eases to move around especially in the hectic urban areas. These vulnerable road users are exposed to greater risk in road collisions due to sharing the roadway with other motor vehicles and unprotected. Worse still, the road was designed without concern for the motorcycle's characteristics. No doubt, segregating motorcycles exclusively from the roadway is an effective engineering measure to address motorcycle safety. But it may not be feasible to introduce in the well-built urban areas. Identification of the road and traffic variables that affecting safe motorcycling in the urban roadway is an initiative to create a safer riding environment. The initial study was carried out to identified traffic and roadway variables that affecting safe motorcycling. The seven pre-determined variables that were found to significantly influencing Malaysian motorcycle riders' safety perception are: pavement condition, paved shoulder width, posted speed limit, mixed traffic volume, type of roadway, lane width, and parking condition. These pre-determined variables were further investigated in the subsequent study, questionnaire with fourteen short video clips representing different traffic and roadway conditions was aired to 483 respondents to rate the motorcycling safety score (MSS) based on their safe riding perception. The response on MSS was further developed into Motorcycling Safety Index (MSI). Lastly, 114 combinations of different traffic and roadway conditions for seven pre-determined variables were formed to establish the Composite MSI boundary. The development of Composite MSI is to enable the road authorities and agencies and/or practitioners to assess the problematic road segments that required immediate remedial actions.
 
 

Development and Validation of a New Questionnaire Assessing Women Perception on Malaysian Road Environment (WPRE)


 
 
 High mobility rate among women has made them more vulnerable in the road environment. Lifestyle changes have urged many women to increase their mobility due to accommodate current demand. Therefore, women are exposed to the risk of accidents as many of them are populated in the road environment. However, most studies and instrumentation on-road environments are universal and not specifically targeting women's perception and anticipation preventing road accidents. Hence, the current study is developing and validating instrumentation of women's perception in Malaysia Road Environment. The sample of this study is 93 women with various age numbers. Out of 7 constructs, 6 were found most reliable and valid with the Cronbach Alpha value > 0.75. The present research provides details of factor analysis results, composite reliability, average variance extract, and reliability analysis which all concluded that the internal consistency of WPRE was not violated. Results reveal items developed are suitable to be adapted in future research with some modification. Finally, this research contributes to developing and validating women’s perception in a road accident which is reliable and valid for measuring WPRE.
 
 

Safety Helmets for Motorcycle Rider with Hearing Impairment

Motorcycle fatal accidents on roads in Malaysia are one of the major causes of death and injuries. There is a need to increase and improvise road safety awareness. In Malaysia, riders with hearing impairment are allowed to ride a motorcycle on the road but restrictions such as responding to the surrounding sounds, especially the sounds produced by the horns and emergency siren from other vehicles warrant a high degree of concern. In this work, a safety helmet is designed to aid the rider with hearing impairment, in detecting the sounds produced by the horns and emergency siren of vehicles. A simple mechanism is developed by using sound sensors as the input, light-emitting diode (LEDs) as the output, and Arduino Uno Board as the controller. The threshold of the sound sensor is 96 dB. When the sensor detected sound waves that exceed the threshold, the LEDs will turn on, which serves as the awareness indication for the rider with hearing impairment. The functionality of the sound detection mechanism in the designed safety helmet is tested based on its response to car and motorcycle horns. The sound intensity produced by car and motorcycle horns is in the range of 107 – 109 dB and 96 – 105 dB. Respectively. The functionality test was conducted at three different distances starting from 4.7m, 9.4m, and 14.10m and the developed system operates to detect the sound of horns in the range of 120-90 dB. Finite element analysis was also performed in analyzing the carbon fiber material for the designed safety helmet, which shows the least deformation (6.174 mm) with the stress of 1014 MPa resulting in the lowest strain of 0.01181 when the load of 3432N was applied to it vertically. Safety helmets that impair hearing with hearing aids are crucial for riders with hearing impairment. However, this work implements an alternative method that focused on using visual warning signals instead of audible warning signals, in aiding the riders with hearing impairment, especially completely deaf riders to stay alert and safe on the road.

Factors associated with informal caregiving and its effects on health, work, and social activities of adult informal caregivers in Malaysia: findings from the National Health and Morbidity Survey 2019

BackgroundThe increase in the elderly population, chronic and degenerative diseases, as well as accidents at work and on the road in Malaysia would result in an increased demand for informal care. This paper aimed to determine the associated factors of informal caregiving and its effects on health, work and social activities of adult informal caregivers in Malaysia.MethodsThe data from the 2019 National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS), a nationwide cross-sectional survey with a two-stage stratified random sampling design, was used in this research. The study included respondents who were 18 years and older (n = 11,674). Data were obtained via face-to-face interviews using validated questionnaires. Descriptive and complex sample logistic regression analyses were employed as appropriate.Results5.7% of the adult population were informal caregivers. Provision of informal care were significantly associated with the female sex (OR = 1.52, 95% CI [1.21, 1.92]), those aged 36–59 years (OR = 1.61, 95% CI [1.15, 2.25]), and those who reported illness in the past 2 weeks (OR = 1.79, 95% CI [1.38, 2.33]). The risk of having their health affected were associated with female caregivers (OR = 3.63, 95% CI [1.73, 7.61]), those who received training (OR = 2.10, 95% CI [1.10, 4.00]) and those who provided care for 2 years or more (OR = 1.91, 95% CI [1.08, 3.37]). The factors associated with the effects on work were ethnicity, received training and had no assistance to provide the care. In terms of effect on social activities, female caregivers (OR = 1.96, 95% CI [1.04, 3.69]) and caregivers who received training were more likely (OR = 2.19, 95% CI [1.22, 3.93]) to have their social activities affected.ConclusionOur study revealed that sex, age, and self-reported illness were factors associated with being an informal caregiver in Malaysia. Informal caregivers faced effects on their health, work, and social activities which may be detrimental to their well-being. This understanding is crucial for planning support for caregivers.

The Influence of Eggshell as Coarse Aggregate Replacement in Hot Mix Asphalt

Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) is the most commonly used in Malaysia for highways, interstates and roads due to its flexibility, economical, strong and provide safe riding quality for road users. Over the years, the increase of damage on pavement roads in Malaysia has become a severe issue although the road did not achieve its design life. Hence, to reduce damage and defect, an improvised road pavement structures is needed. Various studies have been conducted to identify the new materials that can be used as a replacement in hot mix asphalt. In this research, the purpose is to evaluate the performance of eggshell as coarse aggregate replacement in hot mix asphalt. The gradation for aggregate used in this mixture is AC14. The weight for total mixing of the aggregates used is 1200g while the grade for bitumen is 60/70. The samples were mixed with eggshell in the various percentages of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by total weight of aggregate size 5mm. The laboratory tests carried out to determine the properties of aggregates included, aggregate impact value and aggregate crushing value. Besides, penetration and softening point were also performed to determine the properties of bitumen. Several types of test were conducted towards the samples, which are Marshall Test, Indirect Tensile Strength and Cantabro Test. The results exhibit that the conventional asphalt mixture is more effective than modified asphalt mixture. The replacement of eggshell as coarse aggregate was not enough improvement to the performance of asphalt pavement as the performance of conventional mixture is more stable than modified mixture.

Adoption of Building Information Modelling in Malaysia Road Construction

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has changed the road development industry in the most recent decades. In spite of the fact that there are activities by administration of Malaysia to improve the selection of BIM in road development, yet the usage of BIM is still not true to form because of misty guide of BIM reception plan in Malaysia. Along these lines, it is essential to recognize the issues and difficulties in usage of BIM so as to improve the selection of BIM in this industry. This paper plans to analyze the street development industry in Malaysia to build up an unmistakable comprehension about BIM execution and to give the key arrangements and system for street development industry to expand the reception of BIM in Malaysia. This paper has built up broad BIM understanding which makes ready for the investigation by means of subjective and quantitative technique where the information is gathered through study poll among the street development partners in Malaysia and the gathered information is dissected with Average Index utilizing SPSS Software. The outcomes indicated the degree of current BIM usage in Malaysia street development industry is still extremely low and the issues and difficulties of BIM are distinguished in six zones incorporate specialized, process, legitimate, return of venture, government and individuals. Government has been recognized to assume a significant job in offering help to improve appropriation of BIM in Malaysia. The result of this investigation is communicated as a system for the usage of BIM in Malaysia involving issues that require thought for association to advance on BIM development stepping stool. This investigation clears a firm establishment for association to settle on choice in the appropriation of BIM in street development inside the general association structure.

The 85th Percentile Speed: the Compliance of Road Users with the 60km/h Speed Limit at U-turn

Federal Road (FT050) has a National Speed Limit of 90km/h and a speed limit of 60 km/h imposed at every U-turn. Speed limits and signs are posed to inform road users of the appropriate driving speed for safe travel speed for safety measures. However, FT050 is famous as the deadliest stretch of roads in Malaysia with one of the most blackspot locations compared to the other federal road in Malaysia. This study aimed to identify the compliance of road users with the 60 km/h speed limit imposed at 5 U-turn located from KM 0 to KM 20 and to determine the reasons for non-compliance. From the analysis of total 552 vehicles speed taken from 6 U-turns during peak hour, the 85th percentile speed shows the drivers are driving above 60 km/h which indicated non-compliance with the 60 km/h speed limit mainly due to human driving behaviour especially aggressive driving and speeding.

Road User’s Perceptions towards Motorcycle Safety with Regards to Conspicuity in Malaysia Road Traffic

Motorcycles are the top contributor in road crashes in Malaysia with more than 60% of fatal road crashes involved motorcyclists. Conspicuity issue has been one of the major factors of motorcycle crashes especially when travelling at night in rural road areas. Nevertheless, conspicuity issues also contribute to motorcycle crashes in urban road areas where road and vehicle lightings affect the alertness of other road users towards motorcycle presence in the traffic. This study aims to assess road users’ perception of motorcycle safety levels in terms of its conspicuity, at different riding or driving situations at night in the rural and urban areas. A set of questionnaires was developed with experts’ validation, pilot-tested for its reliability and distributed to road users who commute between Klang Valley and Melaka areas. Preliminary analysis from 78 collected data shows that respondents were able to observe better and be more alert of motorcycle presence in road situations when driving in the urban areas compared to the rural areas. Over 80% believe that wearing bright-coloured attires and helmet can enhance motorcycle’s conspicuity and alertness towards other road users. In addition, more than 80% of the respondents agreed that using reflective tapes on the side body of a motorcycle can improve motorcycle visibility, especially at road junctions. These findings could be used as a future initiative by responsible parties in order to reduce motorcycle conspicuity related crashes in Malaysia.

Innovative lane detection method to increase the accuracy of lane departure warning system

Lane departure warning is one important feature in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), which aims to improve overall safety on the road. However, challenges such as inconsistent shadows and fading lane markings often plague the road surface and cause the lane detection system to produce false warnings. Users are aggravated by the warning and tend to disable this safety feature. This paper proposes an efficient Gabor filtering-based lane detection method to overcome the aforementioned conditions and improves the accuracy of lane departure warning system. Furthermore, it serves as a cost-effective solution to a lane departure warning problem, allowing it to be widely deployed. It is heuristically found that lane marking has a general directional property, which can be further enhanced by Gabor filter while suppressing inconsistent road shadows and road markers. Enhanced lane markings are then subjected to adaptive canny edge detection to extract distinct edge markings. Lastly, Hough transformation is applied to label the correct lane candidates on the road surface. Furthermore, we generate a dataset of Malaysia road with various driving conditions. As a proof of concept, a lane departure warning system is built based on the proposed lane detection method, which is able to achieve an accuracy of 93.67% for lane detection and 95.24% for lane departure warning tested on our challenging dataset. The codes are implemented on Raspberry pi 3B and installed in a vehicle for real-time application. The codes are multithreaded and found to achieve a desirable frame speed of 20 fps at 75% CPU utilization.

The impact of roadway conditions towards accident severity on federal roads in Malaysia.

The fatal accidents on the roads remain a global concern. Daily, approximately 18 traffic accidents occur in the Peninsular Malaysia that cause on an average one death in every hour, a situation that needs preventive measures. The development of the effective strategies to reduce such fatal accidents requires the identification of various risk factors including the road condition. We identified such accident severity issues using the public work and police department databases that consisted of 1067 cases of various severity levels occurred on the Malaysian federal roads during 2008 to 2015. These records were used to develop ordered logistic regression model for the accident severity and nine variables were analyzed. The results revealed that the presence of poor horizontal alignment affected the model outcomes. The likelihood of the more serious accident severity due to the poor horizontal alignment was correspondingly about 0.4 times less compared to the absence of such factors. It is established that the present findings may assist the local authorities to take proactive actions to prevent serious road accidents on the road segments possessing the standard horizontal alignment.

Safety Road Signage Application for Kids

The research was done since the increasing of road accident among the children. An average of 19 persons killed in road accidents every day in Malaysia, road accidents constitute a serious public health challenge to the nation. Almost every day there is news regarding kid’s accidents. Referring to this situation, the studies is done based on Malaysian road signage that suitable for kids between 4 to 7 years old to understand the meaning of the signage that used on the road in Malaysia. The purpose of this research is to develop appropriate application that can educate the children to understand the purpose of signage used regarding safety road in Malaysia. The application includes the picture of signage used at road side over Malaysia. The analysis being done by preparing a questionnaire that was distributed to 200 participants and the feedback receive is about 100. The question includes demographic variable and survey followed by their understanding the usage of signage, extent of knowledge and awareness of parents regarding road safety issues involving children and the development of application for children to learn about road signage. The result show a positive feedback from participant regarding road safety and they also agree the development of application over smart mobile are needed to support them in giving education about road signage and safety to their kids. The application is known as “Safety road for Kids”. Parent and children need to raise their awareness about road safety.

A Method of Identifying Critical Road Segment: A Case Study of Peninsular Malaysia Road Network

The resiliency of transportation infrastructures has been a major concern for the continuity of road services. In order to assess these issues, road network analysis is crucial to investigate the functioning of the existing road network and pinpoint each critical road segment. This enables early preparation for road operators and planners to focus on the road segment user most dependent on of which will be impacted most in case of disruption. This paper aims to introduce a method integrating different network analyses using a combination of three measures namely road segment length, betweenness centrality, and road density to identify critical road segments. The result shows the relationship between the different modes proposed with respect to the topological data implemented and concluded as the critical value of each road segment. This paper also includes the application of the methodology in a national scale region of Peninsular Malaysia road network.