Transportation Policy, Strategy and Management

- Headed and Managed by Dr. Leong Choon Heng

This research area is headed by Dr. Leong Choon Heng and focuses on systems of governance, public policies and organizational strategies and management in the delivery of transportation and logistics services. Policy areas range from government regulations, privatization and public-private partnerships in transportation to planning and implementing complex transportation programs, such as pedestrianization schemes, accident reduction programs, etc. Other issues of concern here are changes in society and how transportation and logistics organizations adapt and respond to such changes.

Current Research Topics

Strategies to reduce location-specific road accidents

Principal Investigators: Dr. Leong Choon Heng and Yong Poh Lie


This research aims at developing strategies and tactics to reduce location-specific road accidents. It will be based on detail analyses of selected locations and neighborhoods and will incorporate strategies which involve the participation of multiple agencies, local government authorities and local communities.


Transportation disaster management

Principal Investigators: Dr. Leong Choon Heng and Ramana Rajalingam


This research reviews the existing national level disaster management organization and structure with the objective of proposing improvement measures. The management of transportation disaster are studied with reference to selected happenings in Malaysia.


Planning and implementing pedestrianization, transit mall and street closure schemes

Principal Investigators: Dr. Leong Choon Heng


This research helps to develop a procedure for implementing pedestrianization and street closure schemes in complex urban situations. It involves coordinating and bringing together relevant stakeholders from different spheres of activities, such as policy making and governance, economic organizations, traffic management components and environmental interests, through a complex planning framework. The framework is developed by exploring the case of Bukit Bintang.


Integration of Technologies, Systems, and Institutions in Malaysia

Principal Investigators: Dr. Leong Choon Heng and Dr. Leong Siew Mun
MIT Principal Investigator: Prof. Joseph M. Sussman


This project provided a framework for MUST's longer-term transportation research programme. By building on past and current research activities at MIT as well as work currently ongoing in Malaysia, MUST and MIT investigated regional strategic planning for transportation. Prof. Sussman has created two tools for analyzing this planning process, both of which incorporate advanced technologies and institutional relationships into the decision-making process:

• the CLIOS framework, which stands for Complex, Large-Scale, Integrated, Open System, and
• the ReS/SITE framework, which stands for Regional Strategies for the Sustainable Intermodal Transportation Enterprise. ReS/Site was specifically designed for regional planning and is explicitly concerned with the deployment of technologies, like ITS, into a regional transportation plan.

The research begun with a pilot programme. In the first year, the main topic of investigation was ITS deployment strategies in an economic and environmental context, as well as various frameworks for regional planning in Malaysia. The work being done by the investigators and students reflected the manner in which transportation interacts with other major societal subsystems and would provide a prioritized set of goals and research needs for Malaysia.

Status: Completed

Completed Student Theses in This Research Area

Kow, Pooi San, 2004. "Implementing City Center Pedestrianization from a System Analysis Approach: Case Study of Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur." - supervised by Dr. Leong Choon Heng

Ramana Rajalingam, 2005. "Transportation Disaster Management in Malaysia: Analysis of Preparedness, Mitigation, Response and Recovery." - supervised by Dr. Leong Choon Heng

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