JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT

Transportation Science

Transportation Science, the journal founded by Robert (Bob) Herman in 1967, turned 50 this year. In the half-century since its founding, Transportation Science has steadily built up its reputation and is now considered to be among the top journals, if not the top journal, in the area of transportation science, and, more broadly, the area of logistics.

Of course, it was impossible to let this momentous occasion go by without acknowledging past successes, and, equally, if not more, important, looking at what lies ahead.

To acknowledge the past, the editorial team chose 12 Transportation Science Classics: articles that have appeared in Transportation Science in the last 50 years and have had, each in their own way, a strong impact on the science and/or practice of transportation and logistics. Of course, with so many ground-breaking and excellent quality articles, published over so many years, choosing 12 Transportation Science Classics was challenging and involved making difficult decisions. Many wonderful articles, by outstanding researchers who have contributed superbly to the major advances of the field, did not make it to the list of 12. It is a tribute to the strength of our field, and of the journal, that it was a truly challenging task to look back and select only a few to highlight.

It is equally important to look at what lies ahead. And the outlook is great. It is an exciting time to be involved with transportation. The technological and societal changes taking place around us are having an enormous impact on transportation and, thus, on the science of transportation. Urbanization continues across the globe; already more than 50% of people worldwide live in cities. Climate change and global warming pose real challenges, and changing transportation has to be part of the solution. Automation, e.g., autonomous vehicles, will forever change transportation. Digital connectivity and the Internet of Things will result in orders of magnitude more information being available in real-time, offering the potential to improve decision making. Scientific advances are needed to adjust to the changing environment and to reap the potential benefits. To introduce and highlight some of these opportunities to the transportation community, four invited articles were published, one for each of this year’s issues, discussing a relevant and timely research topic with great potential for scientific and practical impact. The articles covered goods distribution with electric vehicles, last-mile and city logistics, autonomous vehicles and connected vehicle systems, and stochastic vehicle routing.

This year, Transportation Science also got its own Google Scholar page, which lists all the articles that have been published since its inception and which will be kept up to date to provide a lasting and valuable resource for anyone interested in transportation science.

As a community, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Transportation Science, the flagship journal of the field, we should be proud of the many inspiring and influential articles that have been published in the journal, but, most importantly, we need to grasp the opportunities that are in front of us, and continue to advance and push the boundaries of transportation science. The journal will be there to publish the fruits of these efforts.