Vulnerability and Resilience of Transport Systems: How to Manage Unexpected Events

Dear Colleagues,

We are calling for papers for a Special Issue of Sustainability with the aim of gathering knowledge and discussing innovative research paths on transport system resilience. Transport providers, policy makers and local/national bodies have to adapt to evolving and uncertain conditions to respond to changes in travel demand and to face unexpected disruptions, while maintaining high quality and sustainable services. COVID-19 pandemic has showed that unexpected, serious situations may occur quickly, in which transport systems are put under unprecedented strain and, as long as the hazards persist, transport services may suffer from severe disruptions, which in turn have relevant effects on user’s behaviors and future travel choices. However, new technologies, meteorological conditions, and social and urban variations—among others—might also produce unexpected transport system disruptions at several levels of complexity.

To deal with such situations, resilient transport systems are needed, to provide essential functions during a disruption and above all recover fast and efficiently the regular service conditions. Having emerged in recent years as central concern for regulators, transport operators and researchers, transport system resilience has been widely discussed together with the related concepts of vulnerability and robustness. However, several questions are still open, such as: how might transport system resilience be suitably assessed and measured? How might it be enhanced? How might the individual elements of a transport system that make it more vulnerable be identified?

Original research articles dealing with theoretical approaches and empirical evidence for transport resilience analyses are welcome, including practical implementations, case studies and emerging models/methods. Papers dealing with the impacts caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic on transport systems are also appreciated, in order to provide contributions to transport operators and policy makers on how to enhance transport resilience in potentially similar situations.

This Special Issue will provide a platform for exchanging knowledge within the context of response to and management of unexpected events, with the expectation to be of interest primarily for academics and researchers and then for practitioners and experts involved in the planning/management process of transport systems.

Key topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Techniques, models and methods to identify, assess and measure road, rail, air and public transport system resilience;

- Theoretical approaches to resilience analysis, as well as related concepts such as vulnerability and robustness of transport services;

- Lesson learned, tools and case studies that support the development of resilient transport systems, both for passengers and freight;

- Policy issues dealing with the implementation of transport systems resilience in practice;

- Measures, actions and approaches to deal with the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic emergency on transport systems.

Prof. Dr. Luca Mantecchini
Prof. Dr. Maria Nadia Postorino
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-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.