ORiON

Editorial

Jaco Visagie — 2025-06-30

A guiding rubric and usage manual for the doctoral supervisor and doctoral student in the discipline of statistics

Inger Fabris-Rotelli — 2025-06-30

Following the discussions documented by [3], guidelines were devised to support active earlycareer,
emerging doctoral supervisors in Statistics in South Africa. These guidelines developed
are incorporated into a guiding rubric and this associated usage manual. The rubric
is not presented as a formal set of rules, but rather a dynamic document encouraging the
growth of both the novice supervisor and the doctoral student. The rubric need not be used
in its entirety either, since it is only intended to aid in the supervision process within the
discipline of Statistics; it is not meant to be overwhelming or overbearing in the supervision
process.
We present the current evolution of this guiding rubric, after discussions with, and feedback
from, both novice and senior supervisors within South Africa over the period from 2022-2024.
If the rubric is used, the current paper and the conference paper [14] should be cited.
This document is compiled with the intention of improving the potential for emerging supervisors
in Statistics to be appointed as primary supervisor, while allowing for the inclusion of
senior academics as expert co-supervisors or mentors in the team. While the development
of the doctoral student is the primary goal of this guiding rubric, the development of the
novice supervisor is also important as a secondary goal, contributing to the sustainability of
academia in Statistics.

Investigating the proactive avoidance of pre-emption conflicts with emergency vehicle signal pre-emption and route selection integration

James Bekker — 2025-06-30

The study aims to improve average emergency vehicle (EV) response times by proactively
avoiding pre-emption conflicts by integrating emergency vehicle signal pre-emption (EVSP)
and route selection. Pre-emption in this work means to anticipate an emergency vehicle
approaching a signalled intersection, and attempting to ensure it is provided with right of
way. While literature highlights the success of EVSP strategies, particularly when integrated
with route selection, few strategies consider pre-emption conflicts that can cause delays to
EVs. An EVSP and route selection strategy capable of proactively avoiding pre-emption
conflicts was subsequently proposed in this study. Using simulation modelling, the two
strategies were compared in a series of carefully constructed experimental runs. To test
the robustness of the proposed strategy, each experimental run was configured according
to a unique combination of variables. It was empirically observed that, while not robust
against these variables, the proposed strategy could perform equally well or better than the
reference strategy (when considering average EV response times) in most instances. This
indicates that an EVSP and route selection strategy capable of proactively anticipating and
attempting to avoid pre-emption conflicts is a promising approach to reducing the response
times of EVs.