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Free public transport is mean that the public transport is funded in full by means other than collecting fares from passengers. Free public transport can generate a lot benefits to the local people either directly or indirectly. Although Perlis is the smallest state in Malaysia, but there is some rural area doesn’t have a very good public transport service. This had caused problem for the citizen when they want to travel to other places. These problems can be solve by providing a new integrated free public transport service to them. In order to provide a new integrated free public transport service, UniMAP can cooperate with the local government or the local bus service to provide a better and integrated free public transport system. With public transport service, mobility is provided to the residents of rural Perlis. Free public transport services can improve rural economic growth in a various way. The local customer base for a range of services, for example, medical facilities, shopping malls, entertainment, education center services and other services can be increased. When more people tend to use public transport, it will impact on road safety cause fewer vehicles on road. Furthermore when fewer vehicles on road, traffic congestion, and parking congestion problem can be reduced or even being solved. Since the bus commute is something so significant in Perlis road today, this research is to examine the potential of integration existing students bus services extendable to Perlis local people to make advantage of the presence of the bus for their daily activities. It is hoped that this research will propose the optimized route for the bus to operate in systematic structure not only for the student’s essential but also beneficial for the local people mainly in Perlis state.

Presently there is increasing attention in utilization foamcrete as a lightweight non-structural and semi-structural element in buildings to take advantage of its excellent insulation properties. Though, foamcrete has been noticed to have some disadvantages: considerable brittleness; results in low compressive and flexural strength, poor fracture toughness, poor resistance to crack propagation and low impact strength. Hence this study is intended to look into the potential of oil palm trunk (OPT) fiber in enhancing the engineering properties of foamcrete. There are 2 engineering properties will be focused in this study which are ultrasonic pulse velocity and drying shrinkage. Two densities of foamcrete of 600 kg/m3, 1200 kg/m3 were cast and tested. The ratio of cement, sand and water used in this study was 1:1.5:0.45. OPT fibers were used as additives at 0.15%, 0.30%, 0.45% and 0.60% by volume of the total mix. Test results indicated that the engineering properties of foamcrete reinforced with OPT fiber had amplified thoroughly.

Lightning protection system protects building structure from direct lightning impact. Embedding lightning protection cable inside concrete structure is widely use in practice now days. The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of installation of additional conductor cable inside concrete beam to its beam displacement and beam stress using finite element analysis software ABAQUS. The beam without additional conductor cable, with cable conductor installed at top and bottom reinforcement is modelled using ABAQUS. The results obtained from the three model is compared. As the result, the beam with additional conductor cable at top reinforcement shows minimum deformation and minimum Mises stress.

The protection against lightning had been increasingly used in the building to protect the building from the direct lightning impact. One of the methods is to embed the lightning protection cable in the concrete structure. The objective of this research is to investigate any changes of temperature during the lightning strike, which the lightning strike were stimulated by high electric current equipment. The high electric current were provided by high current equipment model Haefely P90.1 and flowed into the concrete cube. There are two method used in this research, by using Thermal Imager Camera Model FLUKE Ti20 to monitor the surface temperature and fiber thermocouple with Data logger model DATATAKER T80 to monitor the temperature in the concrete cube. As the result there are no drastically changes in temperature in both methods. The changes are very small and can be negliable. This is due to the duration of the high electric current strike is too short and not caused any changes in the temperature.

Structural Bonding Method (SBM) is one type of Lightning Protection System (LPS), design to protect human, structures, contents inside structures, electrical equipment, transmission lines and other from the lightning flash. Besides, SBM is a standard LPS that comply with technical standards or codes of practice or called as conventional Lightning Protection System. In order to know the level of the Awareness of the Installation LPS by using SBM in the building among Civil Engineering Consultants, conducting survey need to be done. This paper presents the Research Design and Research Strategy in conducting the survey. It is explaining about the way before conducting the survey which are determine the population of sample (Consultant Company at Northern Region Area), samples of respondents (Civil Engineer at Consultant Office with the number of sample is 40), data collecting process, structure of the questionnaire form and the way in analysis the data. After the analysis the data, the result of the level of awareness in the Installation of LPS by using SBM are consider as moderate level.

Fibre optic daylighting systems are a developing technology that offers solutions to daylighting designers. However, these systems are rarely used in the tropics because of the variable illumination provided by the sky, which changes with latitude, time of day, and seasons. This study examines the illumination levels obtained using a fibre optic daylighting system under various tropical climate conditions in Malaysia. A Parans SP3 fibre optic daylighting system with 10-m cable was used on a full-scale test bed model in Universiti Sains Malaysia as an empirical approach. The following results were obtained: (i) on sunny days with intermediate blue sky, the system worked at 79% and reached a maximum of 725 lx, an average of 457 lx, and a minimum of 98 lx; (ii) on moderately sunny days with intermediate mean sky, the system worked at 48.5% and reached a maximum 685 lx, an average of 439 lx, and a minimum of 80 lx; (iii) under overcast skies, the system worked at 37.5% and reached a maximum of 538 lx, an average of 305 lx, and a minimum of 41 lx. These findings provide benchmarking directions for the application of fibre optic daylighting systems in Malaysia.

As a developing country, Malaysia requires innovation to keep abreast of the rapid growth of technology to meet the highly demanding energy consumption. The application of daylighting systems especially by fibre optics is very limited, due to the absence of relevant knowledge and the lack of understanding of the system requirements and potentials, particularly the technology of illuminating enclosed spaces which are totally surrounded by internal walls (opaque). Thus, the aim of this literature review is to shed light on this new approach and to help the building technologists activate its application in building interiors. This paper presents and summarises the important technical issues that enhance the adoption of this technique for the Malaysian built environment.

A fiber optic daylighting system is an evolving technology for transporting illumination from sunlight into building interiors. This system is a solution developed by daylighting designers to reduce operational costs and enhance comfort. As an innovative technology, fiber optic daylighting systems can illuminate building interiors efficiently compared with other daylighting strategies. However, as a transmission medium in daylighting systems, optical fibers require uniform light distribution in sunlight concentration, which could generate heat. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of heat buildup produced by end-emitting fiber optic daylighting systems in tropical buildings. The applied method adopts a new fiber optic daylighting system technology from Sweden called Parans SP3, with a 10 m cable to be tested in an actual room size under the Malaysian climatic environment, particularly within the vicinity of the main campus of the Universiti Sains Malaysia. Results show that the system generated a temperature of 1.3 °C under average conditions through fiber optic diffusers and increases indoor temperature by 0.8 °C in a 60 m 3 room. According to the results, applying fiber optic daylighting systems, as renewable energy sources, generates extra heat gain in building interiors in the tropics.

Lightning is a natural phenomenon that cannot be prevented, therefore the specific system need to be installed in the building to reduce or eliminate the impact of lightning flash and safely discharge to the ground. The country along the equator including Africa, South America and Southern Asia received the highest number of lightning. Malaysia experienced in average of 100 to 140 days of lightning and 600000 to 1300000 number of lightning flash per year. This research is conducted to identify the materials selection for the lightning protection system especially the down conductor cable. Several projects around Malaysia had been selected for this purpose. From the research, they are two types of lightning protection system commonly implemented in Malaysian buildings; the conventional method and structural bonding method. It was found that 23 % of the projects used structural bonding method, mostly from the government projects, and 77% of the projects used conventional method. For the down conductor cable selection, the conventional method used the copper and aluminium tape. And for the structural bonding method the galvanized steel iron was used as the down conductor cable.