Sustainable Mobility within the Context of Spatial Connectivity: Geography, Networks, and Economy

Dear Colleagues,

The 21^st century has been considered by many scholars and practitioners as the “age of connectivity”, in which the modern society experiences an outbreak to the way that communication is being spread worldwide.  Networks have become an integrated part of the everyday life and describe several of its aspects, such as transportation and mobility, social activity, economic interaction, knowledge exchange, education, energy production and distribution, and many more.  Within the context that connectivity is mutually related to geographical space, where human societies and activities are by default embedded to, the world can be seen as a complex system being interconnected at several geographical scales and functional levels, facilitating the convergence of geographical space that humanity in our century can witness. Therefore, the conceptualization of human mobility, which suggests a major aspect of social communication, should be revisited within the context of connectivity that describes (either directly of indirectly) all geographical and economic structures of the modern world. On the other hand, sustainability in mobility and, generally, in the the functionality of such spatio-economic systems is a major requirement of the modern society for ensuring that the growth and development taking place in interconnected spatial units has the merit to enhance both the current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.

This Special Issue aims to contribute to the understanding of how sustainable mobility is related to the geographical space and the underlying economy, within the context of spatial connectivity. In particular, it is interested to study the symbiotic relation between these interrelated concepts (sustainable mobility, geographical space, and the underlying economy), preferably by using the network paradigm (as its introduced by network science), although other insightful approaches of spatial connectivity can be also welcomed. The Special Issue welcomes well-founded mainly empirical researches (although theoretical ones are also welcomed) which explore, study, and examine aspects of mobility within the multilevel context of geography, network connectivity, and sustainable economy. The Special Issue welcomes researches that deal with spatial networks that are modeled at all levels of geographical scale (e.g. global, international, national, interregional, regional, and urban) and with diverse aspects of mobility (e.g. human, goods, information) or functionality of geographical economic systems, in which the conceptualization of network modeling and sustainability prevail. The main focus of the Special Issue is to promote multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, although well-founded approaches focusing on a single discipline can exceptionally be welcomed.

Overall, this Special Issue intends to develop further conceptual links between Network Science, Economic Geography, Transportation Engineering, and Sustainability and to promote multidisciplinary research contributing to a better conceptualization of our wonderfully complex world.

Dr. Dimitrios Tsiotas
Prof. Dr. Christos T. Papadas
Guest Editors

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