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Safe and Reliable Rail Transit Systems and Vehicle Engineering for Sustainable Transportation

A Special Issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) belonging to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2027 | Viewed by 65

Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Rail Transportation, Soochow University, Suzhou 215131, China
Interests: power supply safety for rail transit; fault diagnosis; intelligent control; condition monitoring

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221006, China
Interests: power supply safety for rail transit; condition monitoring
School of Rail Transportation, Soochow University, Suzhou 215131, China
Interests: power supply safety for rail transit; fault diagnosis; intelligent control

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As rail transit systems expand worldwide to meet urban mobility demands, ensuring their safety and reliability has become fundamental to transportation sustainability. A rail system that is unsafe or unreliable cannot be truly sustainable—service disruptions, accidents and failures undermine public confidence, impose economic costs and diminish the environmental benefits that rail transport promises.

This Special Issue on “Safe and Reliable Rail Transit Systems and Vehicle Engineering for Sustainable Transportation” invites research on the latest innovations, challenges and best practices in railway engineering, system safety science and reliability engineering in relation to sustainable rail transit.

Key themes include system-level safety engineering and risk assessment (SIL quantification, ISA strategies, FMEA/FTA); reliability engineering and prognostics (PHM systems, digital twin, predictive maintenance); intelligent and data-driven safety solutions (AI/ML for structural health monitoring, autonomous train control, big data analytics); sustainable vehicle design (lightweighting, fail-safe architectures, energy-efficient traction) and operational safety including human factors and emergency resilience.

This Special Issue aims to bridge the gap between safety/reliability engineering and sustainability science, bringing together multidisciplinary insights to support rail transit systems that are safe, resilient and sustainable. By contributing to this issue, researchers can help shape a more reliable and environmentally responsible future for rail transportation.

Prof. Dr. Guifu Du
Dr. Dongliang Zhang
Dr. Feiqin Zhu
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. 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.

Keywords

  • rail transit safety
  • railway vehicle engineering
  • system reliability
  • structural integrity
  • wheel-rail interaction
  • prognostics and health management (PHM)
  • digital twin
  • predictive maintenance
  • safety integrity level (SIL)
  • independent safety assessment (ISA)
  • artificial intelligence in rail safety
  • structural health monitoring
  • fail-safe design
  • sustainable rail transit
  • risk assessment
  • human reliability
  • intelligent transportation systems

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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