Autonomous Vehicles and Urban Air Mobility in Next-Generation Transportation Systems: Progress, Methods and Challenges
A Special Issue of Future Transportation (ISSN 2673-7590).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 533
Editors
Interests: shared mobility; urban air mobility; agent-based simulation; emerging technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: artificial intelligence; computer vision; data analytics; deep learning; digital twins
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: connected and autonomous vehicle; operational research; traffic simulation; digital twin
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: ITS; CPS; autonomous and connected vehicle; transportation digital twin; GNSS; cybersecurity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) systems are emerging as key components of next-generation transportation systems. These technologies have the potential to transform how people and goods move through cities and regions. Autonomous driving systems, robotic taxi services, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and drone-based logistics are rapidly progressing from experimental prototypes to operational mobility services. Their deployment could significantly influence travel behavior, logistics operations, infrastructure planning, safety management and multimodal transportation integration.
Despite this rapid technological progress, the large-scale implementation of these systems raises complex technical, operational, safety and regulatory challenges. Reliable perception and localization, safe interaction with human-operated vehicles, integration with existing transportation infrastructure and robust system-level safety assurance remain open research problems. In addition, public acceptance, trust and behavioral adaptation play critical roles in determining how these technologies will be adopted and integrated into everyday mobility. These challenges require interdisciplinary research that combine analytical frameworks, behavioral analysis, safety evaluation, advanced simulation and intelligent sensing technologies.
This Special Issue, entitled “Autonomous Vehicles and Urban Air Mobility in Next-Generation Transportation Systems: Progress, Methods and Challenges,” aims to provide a focused platform for advancing research on conceptual development, behavioral insights, safety assessments and computational modeling related to autonomous vehicles and urban air mobility systems. Both methodological innovations and applied empirical studies are encouraged.
The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Conceptual or analytical frameworks for emerging mobility services involving autonomous vehicles or urban air mobility
- Behavioral studies examining public perception, trust, adoption intention and acceptance of autonomous vehicles or urban air mobility technologies
- Safety analysis and risk modeling of autonomous vehicles, robotic taxi systems and urban air mobility operations
- Simulation-based modeling and digital twin applications for autonomous vehicles, robotic taxi systems and urban air mobility systems
- Computer vision and perception algorithms for autonomous vehicles, electric vertical takeoff and landing systems and drone platforms.
Dr. Zihe Zhang
Dr. Jiaqi (Jackey) Gong
Dr. Weike Lu
Dr. Sagar Dasgupta
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Transportation 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 1200 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.
Keywords
- autonomous vehicles (AVs)
- urban air mobility (UAM)
- behavior modeling and technology adoption
- traffic and mobility simulation
- computer vision for transportation systems
- transportation cybersecurity
- connected and autonomous systems
- cellular vehicle to everything communication (C V2X)
- traffic modeling and network analysis
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
