Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems

About Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems

Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems — A Complete Profile

The Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, shortened to JITS and published in full as Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems: Technology, Planning, and Operations, is a peer-reviewed Taylor & Francis journal for research on how advanced sensing, communication, computing and systems engineering can solve transportation problems and improve the efficiency, safety and sustainability of movement. Its current identifiers are print ISSN 1547-2450 and online ISSN 1547-2442. It is published quarterly, in English, with Scopus coverage in current listings running from 2004 to the present under the full Technology, Planning, and Operations title form.

This profile explains the journal for authors choosing between the many intelligent-transport venues now available — engineering journals, computer science venues, transport policy journals and the separate IEEE intelligent transportation titles, with which JITS is sometimes confused. It sets out what counts as intelligent transportation systems research in this journal eyes, which topics it handles best, what its editor expects of review and special-issue proposals, how its metrics should be read, and one important identifier problem found in this site own record, which lists five ISSNs where current official listings give two. That problem is documented, with evidence, in the identity note below, so that readers can rely on the correct pair.

Quick Facts

Identity Note: Five ISSNs in the Record, Two in Current Listings

This site record lists five ISSN-like numbers for JITS: 1024-8072, 1027-751X, 1547-2442, 1547-2450 and 1563-5082. Every current listing consulted during preparation — Taylor & Francis-facing summaries, SCImago-based summaries and journal directories — gives only the 1547 pair for the present journal: 1547-2450 in print and 1547-2442 online. The additional numbers are consistent with earlier or related serial forms in the journal longer history, before the 2004 full-title listing begins, rather than with the current title. Readers, librarians and citing authors should therefore use the 1547 pair for the journal as it now exists, and treat the longer list in the structured record as a structured-field conflict to be corrected through the site owner process: the profile content here uses the verified current pair, and the extra numbers are reported, not silently repeated as current identifiers. No record has been altered as part of preparing this profile beyond the content published here.

A second confusion to avoid is with IEEE titles. The IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems and IEEE Transactions and Magazine titles in the same field are separate publications from a different publisher, with different editors and different submission systems. A manuscript prepared for JITS should follow Taylor & Francis instructions for code gits20, not IEEE templates, and a citation to JITS should never be expanded into an IEEE title or the reverse.

What Intelligent Transportation Systems Means Here

Intelligent transportation systems, or ITS, is the application of information and communication technology to vehicles, infrastructure, travellers and operators so that a transport network can be observed, predicted, controlled and improved in something close to real time. In JITS, that definition is deliberately wide in discipline and deliberately narrow in consequence. Wide, because the journal is interdisciplinary and accepts work from engineering, computer science, mathematics, economics, planning, policy, business and management, and any other field that contributes to scientific understanding of intelligent transportation systems. Narrow, because a technique alone is not enough: publisher guidance states, in substance, that papers which only apply a machine-learning or image-processing method, without explicitly discussing transportation system implications, will not be accepted. That single editorial rule is the best fit test an author can apply before submitting.

Traffic management, control and operations

Advanced traffic management is a central strand: real-time monitoring and control on signalised arterials, signal priority for transit, queue and spillback handling, incident and secondary-crash analysis, detector and floating-car data, and archival systems for continuous performance measurement. Work in this strand should show what an operator can do differently with the proposed method — a control decision, a priority rule, a clearance strategy — and should test it against realistic demand, delay and safety conditions, not only against a simplified simulation in which every assumption favours the proposal.

Intelligent, connected and automated vehicles

Vehicle-side research covers intelligent vehicles equipped with sensing, communication and automation, cooperative and connected-vehicle ideas, human and automation interaction and safety, and the policy and societal implications of automated driving — a topic on which the journal review literature has been widely cited. Authors should distinguish carefully between a component demonstration and a system result: a perception or prediction component belongs here when its effect on traffic, safety or operations is analysed, and belongs in a computer-vision venue when it is not. Safety claims need particular care, with exposure, comparison conditions and failure modes reported honestly.

Prediction, data and travel behaviour

Traffic prediction, travel-time estimation, smart-card and automated fare-collection data, trip destination estimation and traveller information systems form a third strand. The journal values work that turns the very large data streams modern networks produce — detectors, GPS traces, transit cards, connected vehicles — into estimates and decisions that survive contact with a new day, a new city or a disrupted network. A model that performs well only on the data it was tuned on, with no transfer, robustness or operational discussion, will struggle. A model that explains when it fails, and what an operator or traveller should do then, speaks the journal language.

Public transport, logistics and network planning

Public transportation optimisation, integration between modes, vehicle routing, last-mile distribution — including humanitarian relief logistics, one of the journal most-cited themes — and wider transportation planning and optimisation all sit inside the scope, provided the intelligent-systems element is real: sensing, information, optimisation or control applied to a transport problem, with planning or operational consequences drawn out. Purely descriptive planning commentary without a method or evidence, and purely theoretical optimisation with no transport application, both fit less well than work that joins the two.

Safety, sustainability and policy

Traffic and road safety, environmental effects and policy analysis complete the picture. JITS readers include practitioners and decision-makers as well as researchers, so a policy or evaluation paper that quantifies who benefits, who bears cost or risk, and what implementation would require is welcome when it is grounded in data or in a transparent model. Sustainability claims should be quantified in the same spirit: an emissions or energy benefit should be estimated for the system as operated, including rebound and induced-demand considerations where they apply, rather than asserted from a single vehicle test.

Review Articles and Special Issues — Higher Bars, Set Openly

Authors of review articles should note the publisher unusually explicit position: reviews are considered only rarely, a survey should organise scattered material so that readers gain rapid access and deeper understanding, integration methods such as meta-analysis are encouraged, and the article should develop a future perspective useful to researchers and practitioners. Authors of a proposed survey are expected to have a demonstrated record on the topic, and are strongly encouraged to contact the editor first with a title, a brief abstract, a statement of contribution to the journal and a curriculum vitae showing relevant expertise. Treat that as an instruction, not a courtesy: an unsolicited narrative review from authors without a visible record in the area is unlikely to be the best use of anyone time.

Special-issue proposals face a similarly structured test. The publisher asks for a well-defined, timely and technically sound theme clearly related to the journal scope; a succinct description of the theme and its relevance to the readership; a justification of novelty, significance and expected impact; a tentative topic list and potential contributors; a timeline consistent with the journal review and publication process; the names, affiliations and brief qualifications of the proposed guest editors, with the lead proposer identified; and a list of potential reviewers. Proposers who prepare all seven elements before approaching the editor will be taken more seriously than those who offer a theme alone, and guest editors should expect the journal process, not a separate informal process, to govern the collection.

Metrics and Standing

SCImago-based summaries consulted for this profile place JITS in the first quartile across a striking spread of categories — aerospace engineering, applied mathematics, automotive engineering, computer science applications, control and systems engineering, information systems and software — with an SJR around 1.0 in the summary window, and directory summaries give a Scopus CiteScore in the range of about 7.5 to 10 depending on year and source. An impact factor of about 2.8 appeared in one research-summary listing. These figures describe a well-established specialist journal whose influence is spread across the engineering and computing sides of transport, rather than concentrated in a single disciplinary ranking. As with every journal in this batch, the h-index differs between this site record and database summaries because each source counts a different document set at a different date; quote a figure only with its source. For most authors, the more useful standing signal is simpler: the journal has published continuously under its full title since 2004, is indexed in Scopus, and hosts review and empirical work that transport researchers actually cite when they need the system implications, not only the algorithm.

Deciding and Submitting

Submit to JITS if you can finish this sentence convincingly: because of this work, a transport operator, planner, traveller or policymaker can do a specific thing better, more safely or more sustainably — and the paper proves it under conditions that resemble operation. Choose a different venue if the sentence cannot be finished, if the transport example is interchangeable decoration on a general method, or if the work is a component study whose system effect you are not prepared to analyse. Before submitting, read recent JITS articles in your strand, check your manuscript against the publisher current author instructions for code gits20, state data sources and simulation assumptions completely enough for replication, separate clearly what was measured from what was modelled, and — for reviews and special issues — follow the pre-contact and proposal requirements above rather than submitting cold.

Readers evaluating a JITS article should apply the same standard in reverse. Ask what system decision the article informs, whether the evaluation conditions match that decision, whether safety and failure cases are reported alongside average performance, and whether the authors discuss transfer to other networks, fleets or cities. An article that survives those questions is likely to remain useful after its particular algorithm has been superseded, which is the quiet ambition of a journal organised around technology, planning and operations together.

Worked Examples of Fit and Misfit

Concrete cases make the editorial rule easier to apply than any scope list. Consider first a strong fit: a team develops a method for estimating individual trip destinations from transit smart-card data, validates it on a full fare-collection system, examines how errors vary by rider group and time of day, and discusses how the estimates change service planning for a transit agency. That is a JITS paper in miniature — a data method, a transport system, a validation at system scale and a planning consequence. Consider next a borderline case: a new deep-learning architecture improves short-term traffic-speed prediction on a standard dataset by a small margin. In a computing venue that may be enough. In JITS the authors should also show what the improvement buys in a control, routing or information application, how it behaves during incidents and demand surges rather than only in average conditions, and what it costs to run at network scale. With those additions the same work can belong; without them the publisher guidance points to rejection, however strong the algorithm.

Finally, consider two clear misfits that authors sometimes send to transport journals in hope. A general vehicle-routing contribution with no intelligent-systems element — no sensing, no live information, no adaptive control — and no discussion of deployment belongs in an operations venue, even though routing appears in this journal pages when it is joined to live systems and relief or network operations. And a policy essay about automated vehicles that cites no data, model or evaluated deployment belongs in a commentary outlet, while the same argument rebuilt on evaluated trials, safety exposure data and a clear account of regulatory choice would be a serious JITS candidate. The pattern across all four cases is the journal signature: technology is necessary, but the system consequence is decisive.

A Note on Evidence Standards for Simulation-Heavy Work

Much ITS research is necessarily simulation-based, because live experiments on real networks are expensive, slow and sometimes unsafe. JITS readers therefore apply a practised set of simulation questions that authors should answer before a reviewer has to ask. What demand, network and behaviour assumptions drive the result, and which of them were calibrated on real data? What baseline represents competent current practice, rather than a straw alternative nobody operates? How sensitive is the headline benefit to penetration rate, communication failure, driver compliance and incident conditions? And what would a field trial need to show for the simulated claim to be believed? Papers that answer those questions in the main text, with limitations stated plainly, age far better than papers whose benefits exist only at full penetration, perfect communication and universal compliance. That evidence discipline — not any single topic — is what most distinguishes the journal lasting contributions from its forgettable ones.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the correct current ISSNs? Print 1547-2450 and online 1547-2442. This site structured record lists three additional numbers; see the identity note above for the evidence and the recommended treatment.

How often is it published? Quarterly, in English, by Taylor & Francis.

Can I submit a pure machine-learning paper with a traffic dataset? Not on that basis alone. Publisher guidance requires explicit discussion of transportation system implications; papers that only apply a technique will not be accepted.

Does it accept review articles? Only rarely, and by the route described above: demonstrated author record, a synthesising and future-facing design, and early contact with the editor is strongly encouraged.

Is it an IEEE journal? No. It is a Taylor & Francis journal. IEEE intelligent transportation titles are separate publications.

Who edits it? Publisher material consulted names Prof. Asad J. Khattak as editor. Confirm the current editor on the publisher journal page before correspondence, since editorships change over time.

One final practical note for citing authors: give the journal name in its full Technology, Planning, and Operations form on first mention in a reference list or a library request, because catalogue and index records are filed under that form, while the short Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems form is the name under which most readers search and most articles are discussed. Using both forms correctly — short in prose, full where a record must be matched — prevents the small but persistent retrieval failures that follow transport researchers who rely on a single form.

Sources and Verification Note

Prepared from Taylor & Francis Online material for journal code gits20, including its guidance on machine-learning submissions, review articles and special-issue proposals and its naming of the editor; SCImago-based and directory summaries for the ISSN pair, quarterly frequency, 2004 full-title start, Scopus coverage, categories and metrics windows; and this site REST record for post 378084, whose five-number ISSN list is the structured-field conflict documented above. All source wording is paraphrased in original language; metrics are reported as source-dependent ranges rather than as single live values.