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RESEARCH PRODUCT

New Perspectives and Challenges in Traffic and Transportation Engineering Supporting Energy Saving in Smart Cities—A Multidisciplinary Approach to a Global Problem

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Transportation, like other spheres of human activity, is constantly changing due to economic development. People are constantly improving the ways of moving using various energy sources, expanding infrastructures, and adapting cities to increasing traffic volumes. An efficient, modern, and demand-driven transportation infrastructure is the strength of a growing economy. The development of transportation improves the accessibility of regions and labor markets and reduces the nuisance caused by congestion. All these elements translate into economic benefits, competitiveness, increased productivity of enterprises and regions, as well as social benefits. However, transport consumes enormous energy resources; hence, all solutions in the scope of improving transportation infrastructure, vehicle construction, as well as modeling users’ and drivers’ behavior may constitute an element contributing to broadly saving energy. This Special Issue will consist of papers describing the state-of-the-art in methods and solutions in traffic and transportation engineering supporting energy saving in smart cities as well as outlining trends already under way and future developments in this sector. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following: • Road traffic measurements, data analyzing; • Road traffic (micro-, meso-, macro) modelling, simulation models; • Road and intersection capacity; • Optimization, route choice; • Human factor in road traffic and transportation engineering; • Road safety; • Pedestrian and bicycle traffic and infrastructure; • Public transportation solutions, parking; • Contemporary problems of road traffic engineering and sustainable transportation; • Intelligent transportation systems (ITS), traffic control and management; • Smart grid services; • Electric mobility; • Environmental impacts of transportation systems; • Life cycle analysis (LCA) of alternative energy vectors for road vehicles; • Transportation systems and process modeling; • Sustainable transportation development; • Life cycle impact, fuel consumption, and emissions. In the next section, we provide a brief review of the papers published in this Special Issue. These papers are included in the previously outlined thematic areas