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Prof Trung Thanh Nguyen

School of Engineering

Faculty of Engineering and Technology

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Prof. Trung Thanh Nguyen is a Professor of Operational Research in Transportation and a co-director of the Liverpool Logistics, Offshore and Marine (LOOM) Research Institute, which is a leading research institute in risk assessment, safety analysis, and transport/logistics.

He is leading the Smart Green Things group, a research and development group on optimisation/simulation, operational research, data analytics, machine learning with focuses on active travel, maritime, transport (rail and road), logistics, IoT and smart cities problems.

His group is helping industry and local authorities to improve operations and solve various problems such as:
- Optimisation solutions to improve maritime port operations.
- Digital twins and smart, data-powered solutions for transportation, especially maritime, road and public transportation.
- Simulations to understand what-if scenarios for ports, airports, train stations, and universities.
- Machine learning-based prediction to improve traffic congestion on roads and reduce delays on maritime, rail and buses.
- Smart IoT sensors and smart city solutions to improve transportation operations, well-beings and air quality.
- Data analytics, optimisation and artificial intelligence to promote active travel (cycling and walking).

He has attracted about £5M external grant funding to LJMU (over £2.5M as Principal Investigator). He has led/been leading 20 externally funded projects as Principal Investigator. He led a REF impact case study and provided 7 research outputs to LJMU’s REF 2021 Engineering submission, contributing to our excellent REF performance (96% outputs and 100% impact are ‘world-leading ‘or ‘internationally-excellent’). He received the LJMU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research Impact in 2023, LJMU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Knowledge Transfer in 2015, a Highly Commended Award in Newton Prize 2017, a runner-up Mersey Maritime Innovation Award in 2018 (together with Prof. Zaili Yang and Prof. Jin Wang), and a national runner-up prize for the best ICT product in the Vietnam's Nhan Tai Dat Viet 2005 award.

Recent research grants (as a principal investigator):
1. Liverpool-Belfast Green Corridor Feasibility Study, funded by UKRI via Connected Places Catapult. LJMU is a partner. 2024
2. Zero-emission electric Service Operation Vessel (eSOV), funded by Department for Transport via Innovate UK. LJMU is a partner. 2023-25.
3. Freeport and Net Zero Transport Doctoral Training Centre, funded by HEFCE via LJMU. LJMU is the lead partner. £800K, 2023-2028.
4. Smart Technologies for the Green Sustainable Travel Corridors, funded by the Department for Transport via LCR Combined Authority, £159K to LJMU, Lead applicant, 2022-23.
5. Co-designing the 15-minute city, funded by EPSRC DecarboN8 Network Plus via University of Leeds, £25K to LJMU, 2021-2022.
6. PopupWatch 2- Analysing traffic on emergency popup lanes for cycling and walking in the Liverpool City Region, funded by Department for Transport via Merseytravel, £17K to LJMU, 2021-2022.
7. IRIS 2: Improving information and communication system for railway, funded by UKRI, £98K to LJMU, Lead applicant. 2021.
8. PopupWatch - Monitoring and evaluating traffic on emergency popup routes in the Liverpool City Region, funded by Department for Transport via Merseytravel, £18K to LJMU, 2020-2021.
9. IRIS: Information system for railway station staff, funded by Department for Transport via InnovateUK, £330K to LJMU, Lead applicant. 2020-2021.
10. Mind-My-Bumpy-Ride: a machine learning model on mobile phones to identify potholes from cycling behaviours, funded by the Department for Transport, £30K to LJMU, 2020.
11. Liverpool City Region Green Sustainable Travel Corridors, funded by European Regional and Development Fund (ERDF), £680K to LJMU, 2019-2021.
12. COINS: Customer-Operational Information System for Stations, funded by the Department for Transport via InnovateUK, £265K to LJMU, Lead applicant. 2019-2020.
13. ANTI-SLIP: Anticipate and mitigate the impact of slippery rail, funded by the UK Rail Safety and Standards Board, £123K (£99K to LJMU). Lead applicant. 2019 - 2020.
14. Anticipating and mitigating reactionary delays in railway networks, funded by the UK Rail Safety and Standards Board, £108K (£86K to LJMU) Lead applicant. 2018 - 2019.
15. Modelling and optimising rail operations for more sustainable urban transport – a passenger-oriented approach, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, 2017-2018. Lead applicant.
16. Optimisation models for better rail services, funded by Department for Transport, 2016-2017, rail research. Lead applicant.
14. Operational research for green logistics, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering (£24K to LJMU), 2016-2017. Lead applicant.
17. Sustainable maritime logistics research UK- Vietnam, funded by UK BIS and managed by the British Coucil, £300K (£141K to LJMU). Lead applicant, 2015-17.
18. UK-ASEAN Research partnership: ICT for sustaining & renovating logistic services, funded by the British Council, £41K, Lead applicant, 2015-16.
19. Virtual port simulation/optimisation, £7.5K, funded by the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT).

Recent external research grants (as a co-investigator):
1. EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Net Zero Maritime Energy Solutions, £1.9M to LJMU, 2024-23
2. Digital innovations for manufacturing and logistics, Innovate UK via KTP, £133K to LJMU, 2023-25.
3. Optimisation and IoT for manufacturing and logistics, Innovate UK via KTP, £133K to LJMU, 2024-26.
4. EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship. STOP-FIRE: Emergency Decision Support System of Offshore Platform Fire €225k to LJMU, 2019-2021.
5. EU H2020 RISE project REMESH - Research Network on Emergency Resources Supply Chain, €504k (€299k to LJMU), 2019-23.
6. Cycling safety analysis (Phase 2) - DfT Cycling and Walking Funds, £55K, 2018-19.
7. EU INTERREG BluePortS - Atlantic Blue Port Services, €2.2m (€140k to LJMU), 2017-19.
8. EU H2020 RISE project RESET – Reliability/Safety for large maritime engineering systems, €1.28m (€248k to LJMU), 2016-20.
9. Industrial project on transport network resilience and sustainability analysis, £60K (£30K to LJMU), 2015-8.
10. InTraDE1 (Intelligent transport in dynamic environments) – IAVs Transferability, funded by EU INTERREG IVB, €32K (€32K to LJMU), 2014-15.
11. Voyage Optimal Routing, funded by Innovate UK, £705K (£20K to LJMU), 2014-16.
12. Offshore e-safety case, funded by RMRI, £60K (£30K to LJMU), 2014-7.


Selected journal publications:
1. Ancele Y, Ha MH, Lersteau C, Matellini DB, Nguyen TT (2021). Toward a more flexible VRP with pickup and delivery allowing consolidations Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies (Impact factor: 8.089)
2. C. Lersteau, T.T. Nguyen, T.T. Le, H.N. Nguyen, W. Shen (2021). Solving the problem of stacking goods: mathematical model, heuristics and a case study in container stacking in ports. IEEE Access (Impact factor: 3.8), Accepted.
3. Loughney S, Wang J, Matellini DB, Nguyen TT (2021), Utilizing the Evidential Reasoning approach to determine a suitable wireless sensor network orientation for asset integrity monitoring of an offshore gas turbine driven generator, Expert Systems with Applications, 185:115583 (Impact factor: 8.67).
4. Yazdani D, Omidvar MN, Cheng R, Branke J, Nguyen TT, Yao X (2020). Benchmarking Continuous Dynamic Optimization: Survey and Generalized Test Suite. IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics. Accepted (Impact factor 11.08).
5. A Makki, T T Nguyen, J Ren, D Al-Jumeily, W Hurst (2020). Estimating Road Traffic Capacity. IEEE Access (Impact factor: 3.8). Accepted.
6. V.T. Vu, L.T. Bui, T.T. Nguyen (2020) A competitive co-evolutionary approach for the multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. IEEE Access (Impact factor: 3.8), Accepted.
7. Yazdani D, Omidvar MN, Branke J, Nguyen TT, Yao X (2020). Scaling Up Dynamic Optimization Problems: A Divide-and-Conquer Approach. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, (Impact factor: 11.17, ranked 3rd/104 in Computer Science, Theory & Methods).
8. I. Deplano I, D. Yazdani D, T.T. Nguyen (2019). The Offline Group Seat Reservation Knapsack Problem with Profit on Seats. IEEE Access, 7 :152358-152367 (Impact factor: 3.8).
9. I. Deplano, C. Lersteau, T.T. Nguyen (2019). A mixed-integer linear model for the Multiple Heterogeneous Knapsack Problem with realistic container loading constraints and bins’ priority. International Transactions in Operational Research (Impact factor: 3.0), Accepted.
10. Barrlett Z, Han L, Nguyen TT, Johnson P (2019). A Novel Online Dynamic Temporal Context Neural Network Framework for the Prediction of Road Traffic Flow. IEEE Access (Impact factor: 3.8), Accepted.
11. Yazdani D, Omidvar MN, Deplano I, Lersteau C, Makki A, Wang J, Nguyen TT (2019) Real-time seat allocation for minimizing boarding/alighting time and improving quality of service and safety for passengers. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, (Impact factor 6.1, ranked 4th/36 in Transportation Science & Technology), Accepted.
12. R. Wang*, T.T. Nguyen*, C. Li, I. Jenkinson, Z. Yang, S. Kavakeb (2019). Optimising discrete dynamic berth allocations in seaports using a Levy Flight based meta-heuristic. Swarm and Evolutionary Computation (Impact factor: 6.9, ranked 7th/108 Computer Science, Theory & Methods), Accepted. - *co-first authors.
13. D. Yazdani, T.T. Nguyen, J. Branke (2019). Robust optimization over time by learning problem space characteristics. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, (Impact factor: 11.17, ranked 2nd/108 in Computer Science, Theory & Methods), online first at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8371222.
14. Li C, Nguyen TT, Wu M, Yang M, Zeng S (2018). An Open Framework for Constructing Continuous Optimization Problems. IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (Impact factor: 11.08, ranked 1st/23 Computer Science, Cybernetics), online first at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8353116.
15. D. Zhang, S. Cai, F. Ye, Y-W. Si, T. T. Nguyen (2017). A hybrid algorithm for a vehicle routing problem with realistic constraints. Information Sciences, 394-395: 167-182. (Impact factor: 5.9, ranked 9th/156 Computer Science, Information System)
16. S. Kavakeb*, T. T. Nguyen*, Z. Yang and I. Jenkinson (2016). “Evolutionary fleet sizing in static and uncertain environments with shuttle transportation tasks - the case studies of container terminals”, IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine, (Impact factor: 9.1, ranked 9th/137 Artificial Intelligence) – *co-first authors.
17. C. Li, T. T. Nguyen, M. Yang, M. Mavrovouniotis, S. Yang (2016). An Adaptive Multi-Population Framework for Locating and Tracking Multiple Optima. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 20:590-605 (Impact factor: 10.63, ranked 1st/105 in Computer Science, Theory & Methods)
18. C. Li, T. T. Nguyen, M. Yang, S. Yang, S. Zeng (2015). Multi-population methods in unconstrained continuous dynamic environments: the challenges. Information Sciences, 296: 95-118. (Impact factor: 5.53, ranked 9th/156 Computer Science, Information System).
19. S. Kavakeb*, T. T. Nguyen*, K. McGinley, Z. Yang, I. Jenkinson, R. Murray (2015). Green vehicle technology to enhance the performance of a European port: a simulation model with a cost-benefit approach. Transportation Research, Part C: Emerging Technologies, 60:169-188 (Impact factor 5.78, ranked 3rd/37 in Transportation Science & Technology) – *co-first authors.
20. Alkhatib. S, R. Darlington, Z. Yang, T.T. Nguyen (2015). A novel technique for evaluating and selecting logistics service providers based on the logistics resource view, Expert Systems with Applications, 42(20):6976–6989 (Impact factor: 4.3, ranked 7th/84 Operations Research).
21. T. T. Nguyen, S. Yang and J. Branke (2012). Evolutionary Dynamic Optimization: A Survey of the State of the Art,, Swarm and Evolutionary Computation, 6: 1-24. (Impact factor: 6.33, ranked 4th/104 Computer Science, Theory & Methods) (ranked 2nd in Science Direct Top 25 for Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 2012-2013, 3rd in 2014, 1st in 2015 and listed in Swarm and Evolutionary Computation most cited list).
22. T. T. Nguyen and X. Yao (2012). Continuous Dynamic Constrained Optimisation – The Challenges, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 16(6): 769-786 (Impact factor: 8.05, ranked 3rd/104 in Computer Science, Theory & Methods). (selected as one of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society’s Publication Spotlights, May 2013).
23. C. Li and S. Yang and T. T. Nguyen (2012). A Self-Learning Particle Swarm Optimizer for Global Optimization Problems, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics, 42(3):627-646. (Impact factor: 6.22, ranked 1st/24 in Computer Science, Cybernetics)
24. T. T. Nguyen and X. Yao (2008). “An Experimental Study of Hybridizing Cultural Algorithms and Local Search”, International Journal of Neural Systems, 18(1): 1-17. (Impact factor: 6.4, ranked 10th /133 in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence).

Current members of Dr. Nguyen's Operational Research group:
- Dr. Igor Deplano, Optimisation, machine learning, simulation and IoT in transport & logistics (rail analytics, delay prediction, rail network, seat allocation, theory and algorithms for the bin packing problem) (Best PhD award by Faculty of Engineering and Technology)
- Dr. Yannis Ancele, Vehicle routing problem, optimisation for bicycle delivery, wayfinding for hospital visitors.
- Dr. Ahmed Makki, Simulation & modelling for road Transport, modular container for LNG, transport survey. (several best paper and best poster awards)
- Neil Cook: Real-time web system for rail transportation
- Diane Fitch: Strategic and software project management, smart cities, IoT, mobile app development and sustainable transport
- Amanda Wilson: Administration, smart cities, IoT, mobile app development and sustainable transport
- Giorgos Tsapparellas: Smart cities, IoT, and sustainable transport
- Adam Withington: Human centred design, Human-computer interaction research
- Alan Palin: Project management, real-time web system for rail transportation
- Anthony Morris: Back-end development, cloud infrastructure and real-time messaging systems
- Rinchen Tuladhar: Front-end development, web technology and real-time web system for rail transportation
- Carys-Anne Evans: Simulation and sensor technologies for pedestrian and transportation
- Dr. Christina Phillips: Operational research, business analytics, bike-sharing, smart cities and sustainable transport

External members:
- Zoe Bartlett, Prediction Modelling for Road Transport.
- Tri Thanh Le, Vessel Stowage Planning to Improve Port Operations.
- Van Truong Vu, Evolutionary Computation for Continuous Optimisation
- Dr. Ran Wang: Evolutionary computation, metaheuristics, berth planning, manufacturing simulation.
- Dr. Danial Yazdani: Evolutionary computation, dynamic optimisation, robust optimisation, large-scale optimisation, rail seat allocation (Best PhD award by Faculty of Engineering and Technology)
- Dr. Charly Lersteau: Container stacking, manufacturing simulation, train passenger simulation, and train data analytics.


Previous members:
Dr. Shayan Kavakeb
Dr. Mario Garza
Dr. Iffat Gheyas
Dr. Juanjo Peiro
Dr. Sachchida Nand Chaurasia
Samantha Gibbons
Alan How

Previous scholar visitors:
Prof. Lam Thu Bui
Prof. Ha Nam Nguyen
Dr. Minh Hoang Ha
Dr. Hien Nguyen
Dr. Chi Trung Ha
Mr. Tri Thanh Le
Mr. Van Truong Vu

External speakers:
- Prof. Kay Chen Tang
- Prof. Shengxiang Yang
- Prof. Yaochu Jin
- Prof. Changhe Li
- Dr. Shayan Kavakeb

Degrees

University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, PhD

Academic appointments

Professor, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool John Moores University, 2020 - present
Reader, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool John Moores University, 2015 - 2020
Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, Technology and Maritime Operations, Liverpool John Moores University, 2013 - 2015

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