![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Fifty years of evolution of transportation research is revisited based on bibliometric indicators of nearly 50,000 articles, the collective publication of all transportation journals. A multitude of objective indicators all consistently determined four major divisions in the field: (i) network analysis and traffic flow, (ii) economics of transportation and logistics, (iii) travel behaviour, and (iv) road safety. Trending themes of research within the abovementioned divisions respectively are: (i) macroscopic fundamental diagram and public transport network design, (ii) nil (no distinct trending topic), (iii) land-use, active transportation, residential self-selection, travel experience/satisfaction, social exclusion and transport/spatial equity, and (iv) statistical modelling of road accidents. Furthermore, clusters of research related to topics of (a) shared mobility, (b) electric mobility, and (c) autonomous mobility constitute trending topics that are each a cross between multiple divisions of the field. These outcomes document major directions to which the transportation research is headed. Additional outcome is determination of influential outsiders, seminal articles published by non-transportation journals that have proven instrumental in the development of transportation science.
Acknowledmengts
This research was funded by Australian Research Council grant DE210100440.
An earlier version of it has been presented as arXiv in ‘Structure and temporal evolution of transportation literature’ and is accessible via the following link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.12639
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Numbers in parentheses present average publication year.
2. Numbers in parentheses present average number of citations.