Challenges and Perspectives on Human-Centered Sustainable Transportation

Dear Colleagues,

A profound transformation in traffic systems, and in particular, human choices for more sustainable modes of transportation, is necessary to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and counter climate change in the future. Making alternative modes of transportation more attractive for the general population may help to reduce the existing preference for the individual use of private motorized vehicles with fossil fuels. Here, examples include automated and electric vehicles, models of shared ownership, and ride-sharing/hailing, as well as a combination of public transportation and light vehicles (such as e-bikes, scooters, or hoverboards) for the first and last mile of trips. Supporting the “user’s” behavioral change in transportation towards these solutions requires interdisciplinary research efforts from various domains such as (traffic) psychology, human factors, sociology, and human–computer interactions. With this Special Issue, we want to focus on solutions supporting users’ behavioral changes towards more sustainable modes of transportation. We invite researchers to submit both theoretical contributions and empirical results addressing the human perspective on sustainable transportation. Thereby, we welcome not only investigations of existing problems, but also proposals and evaluations of potential solutions. Problems and solutions may be addressed by various research approaches, from lab studies to real-world experiments and living labs. However, they should always include a human-centered perspective on sustainable transportation.

In particular, we call for papers contributing to one or more of the following topics for this Special Issue:

• User-centered evaluation of sustainable transportation systems, such as shared automated vehicles;
• Novel user interfaces for interaction with/in transportation systems, e.g., shared automated mobility (on-demand);
• User-centered evaluation of light-weight vehicles such as electric bicycles and scooters for first and last mile transport;
• Individual and/or societal acceptance of cross-modal mobility solutions, mode choice, or modal split;
• Novel methods for investigating behavioral change, with a particular focus on long-term behavior;
• Frameworks, models, or taxonomies for guiding behavioral change towards sustainability;
• Radical new approaches for sustainable transport systems;
• Human-centered solutions for sustainable transportation;
• Acceptance of transformational processes towards sustainable transportation;
• Literature reviews and metastudies addressing sustainable transportation;
• Evaluations of expected potentials, technology assessments, or impact assessments of sustainable transportation systems.

Submissions will undergo a stringent review process with two or more independent reviewers. Submissions should provide novel insights not published elsewhere; however, integrating multiple studies or extensions of existing publications is welcome when new insights and substantial additional content are provided.

We are looking forward to receiving your work.

Dr. Michael Oehl
Dr. Philipp Wintersberger
Dr. Viktoriya Kolarova
Prof. Dr. Stefan Brandenburg
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• human-centered system design
• sustainable transportation
• behavioral studies
• theoretical contributions