EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics
Call for Papers
Special Issue: Demand Responsive Transportation systems for promoting social inclusion. Algorithms, models and simulation techniques for service design and optimization
Deadline for submission: June 15, 2025
Guest editors:
- Professor Riccardo R. Rossi, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Dr. Jorge Pinho de Sousa, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
- Assoc. Professor Massimiliano Gastaldi, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Dr. Riccardo Ceccato, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
Special Issue Information
Public transit is crucial for providing efficient and sustainable mobility to many people worldwide, especially in urban areas with high demand. Traditional public transportation often struggles in low-density areas or where demand is uneven, leading to reduced service availability. This can hinder social inclusion, particularly for individuals with specific mobility needs. Demand Responsive Transportation (DRT), which offers flexible routes, schedules, and stops based on passenger demand, has been proposed as a solution. However, more research is needed to optimize DRT services to better meet the diverse travel needs of different communities. This Special Issue explores how DRT can promote social sustainability in public transportation through algorithms, models, simulations, and practical applications.
Public transit is considered the backbone of many transportation systems worldwide. The service aims at guaranteeing the right to mobility to many people in an efficient, economically and socially sustainable way. Traditional public transportation with fixed schedule and stops is manly designed for urban areas with a high demand, spatially and temporarily distributed. On the other hand, to avoid running empty or near-empty buses, mobility providers tend to reduce the service supply in areas with a low population density or with an uneven temporal demand profile. However, this issue could prevent the achievement of the social goal of public transportation. In particular, this effect is emphasized for those people with specific mobility needs who do not have available travel alternatives. Many works have focused on Demand Responsive Transportation (DRT) as a potential solution to this problem. DRT is a transit service tailored to passenger demand, with flexible routes, schedules, and stops. However, more research is needed to study how a DRT service can be optimized to promote social inclusion by satisfying the travel needs of different groups of travelers living in different geographical areas. The aim of this Special Issue is to provide an in-depth investigation of the effectiveness of DRT in achieving the socially sustainable goal of public transportation. Research topics include algorithms, models, simulation approaches, and practical applications to design and optimize DRT aiming at the social sustainability of mobility.
Manuscript submission information:
Submission Due Date: 15 June 2025
Please select the article type of 'VSI: DRT systems for promoting social inclusion' for this special issue in the Editorial system of the journal: https://www.editorialmanager.com/jtl/default.aspx.
Keywords:
Demand Responsive Transportation, Public Transportation, Social inclusion
Why publish in this Special Issue?
- Special Issue articles are published together on ScienceDirect, making it incredibly easy for other researchers to discover your work.
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- Special content articles attract 20% more citations in the first 24 months than articles published in regular issues.
- All articles in this special issue will be reviewed by no fewer than two independent experts to ensure the quality, originality and novelty of the work published.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).
