Special Issue "Future Transportation of People and Goods"

Dear Colleagues,

Transportation of people and goods is operated in the air, on the land, on the sea, and recently to the edge of the space. Transportation relies on effective vehicles, good infrastructures, as well as good environmental conditions. Transportation contributes significantly to the ongoing changes in climate and is at the same time affected by the global crises which lead to global supply chain shutdowns. The changing climate is creating new waterways in the Arctic, triggering coastal erosion, and is affecting maritime traffic systems. In time, further exciting advancements are expected to emerge in the field of transportation as the USA and the EU are investing billions of USD and EUR, respectively, on new infrastructures, most of them connected with transportation. The challenge is to give the chance to the territories to start their own economies again and to create new systems of soft mobility for new generations of users. With the continuously evolving technologies, transportation of people and goods is becoming smart and intelligent. New autonomous and electrical vehicles are being produced, and government and private sector actors are producing and installing sensors and platforms aiming at providing crucial information on the state of the air, land, and sea. A number of satellites and unmanned aerial vehicle sensors provide crucial information on the state of maritime, land, and air conditions. On-ground sensors and cameras provide important information on the current state of the abovementioned environments. Future transportation will rely heavily on information provided by these sensors, platforms, and their connectivity to transport vehicles. It will greatly benefit from smooth flow of information between these platforms, sensors, and vehicles enabled by the internet and other kinds of modern communications. However, efficiency and the security of that flow and transfer of information is the most important aspect of future transportation of people and goods.

This Special Issue will focus on the latest advances in technologies aiming at future transportation of people and goods. Authors are invited to submit original manuscripts on topics including (but not limited to): 

• Smart cities and smart logistics;
• Blockchain and the Internet of Things;
• Artificial Intelligence and machine and deep learning for the mining of raw materials;
• Photogrammetry for coastal areas, maritime and land monitoring;
• New active and passive sensors for autonomous vehicles;
• Geological mapping of nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum;
• Climate and energy technologies;
• Evaluation of the impact of transportation on coastal cities and coastal morphological evolution;
• New sensors and their applications for fault movements and seismicity analyses and sediment management;
• Satellite technologies for transportation of people and goods;
• New harbors, new bridges, and tunnel constructions;
• Bathymetry mapping of uncharted and hard-to-reach waters for marine transportation and sunk obsolete ships detection.

Prof. Dr. Giovanni Randazzo
Dr. Anselme Muzirafuti
Dr. Dimitrios S. Paraforos
Guest Editors