The European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research (EJTIR) is a peer-reviewed open access journal with no article processing charges and no publishing fees. All papers are double blind peer-reviewed. While we are a European-based journal, we welcome papers from all over the world. We expect authors to explicitly discuss potential lessons relevant to Europe or other western countries. Because EJTIR aims to be relevant for practice, we favor multi-disciplinary papers that study topics from different angles.
Transport and infrastructure can be studied from a wide range of perspectives. EJTIR takes a special interest in the behavioral, organizational, economic, and/or public policy dimensions of the planning and operations of transport systems. We consider all modes of transport for passenger and freight transport.
Examples of topics that fall inside the scope of EJTIR are impact assessments of exogenous developments, disruptions, and interventions affecting the transport system, as well as design and decision support methods for those interventions. Examples of interventions in which we are interested are infrastructure improvements, spatial planning related interventions, the introduction and deployment of new modes, technologies and services, maintenance and asset management, crowd management, information services, mobility and traffic management, and pricing policies. Impact assessments can for example focus on behavioral changes, such as changes in activities and tours, location choice and land use, non-travelling, destination choice, vehicle ownership, mode choice, vehicle type choice and departure time choice, impacts on multi-modal flows, and on broader impacts such as economic impacts, and impacts on accessibility, livability, sustainability, health, safety, equity, and resilience.
Examples of papers that fall outside the scope of EJTIR are papers that discuss structural components of infrastructure or pavement without addressing their impact on the transport system's performance, as well as those focusing on individual links, nodes, or elements of a transport system (e.g., a single intersection, luggage belt, elements of supply chains, internal company logistics) without considering system-level implications or implications on policy-making processes. Additionally, highly theoretical, or technical topics, such as technical requirements for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, supply chain optimization, vehicle routing problems, or machine learning techniques for traffic predictions, fall outside the scope of EJTIR.
We are a scholarly journal. This implies that we will only consider papers that explicitly contribute to relevant academic literature. We are interested in new theories, models, and other methods, as well as novel empirical work. We are also interested in new insights obtained using state-of-the-art theories and methods. We expect every paper submitted to EJTIR to contain a review of past work on the paper’s topic, either in the introduction, or in a separate section, which is used to explicitly identify an academic knowledge gap. In addition, we expect submitted papers to clearly mention in the introduction the intended contribution.
We do not only want to contribute to the academic debate on transport and infrastructure, we also want to contribute to practice. We are primarily interested in publishing research that makes a real difference in addressing the immense and growing challenges of today’s transport systems. This means that EJTIR encourages submission of scholarly papers that explicitly aim to support decision-making and policy-making in the field of transport and infrastructure.
In addition, current transport problems often require that they are viewed from different perspectives. Therefore, EJTIR strongly supports special issues. Our ambition is to publish two special issues each year. We strongly encourage prospective guest editors to contact us with their ideas.
How We Are Published
We are a so-called Platinum Open-Access journal. Readers pay no fees, and neither do authors. We strongly believe that access to ideas developed with the aim of addressing important transport-related challenges should not be restricted to those individuals and institutions that are able to pay publishers large (subscription) fees.
We are an internet-only journal. Most scholars would say that the internet has replaced hardcopy material as the foremost scholarly medium of communication and dissemination. We agree with this view. The open-access, internet-only format brings important practical advantages to our authors and readers:
There are no Article Process Charges (APC) and Submission Charges for authors
Authors can disseminate their published work easily to colleagues around the world, without any formal restriction. They can also freely use their published EJTIR-papers for educational purposes.
Authors benefit from the internet-based format as it allows us to drastically reduce turnaround times. Compared to most other journals in our field, EJTIR’s review and publication process is about twice as fast.
Readers can freely access our papers from wherever they are: the only requirement is access to the internet. In turn, the accessibility of papers published in EJTIR increases their potential impact.
Frequency of Publication
The journal uses continuous publication. Papers are published immediately after acceptance in four issues per year and archived in this manner.
Article Processing Charges
Publishing in EJTIR is entirely free, so neither Submission Charges nor Article Processing Charges are required from the authors. The resources needed to run the journal are covered by the institutions where the (associate) editors are employed, mainly in the form of time invested.
Open Access Policy
EJTIR is an open access journal licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone is free to share (to copy, distribute, and transmit the work), to remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions:
The original authors must be given credit
For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are
Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission
Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights
Copyright Policy
Authors retain their copyrights
If you are using published images, text or other materials, please be aware of copyright regulations. The TU Delft Copyright helpdesk can provide further information and answer your copyright questions.
In case of (alleged or proven) copyright breaches or scientific misconduct (e.g. fabricating data), EJTIR will follow the developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Review Policy
The EJTIR journal is committed to a transparent review process that adheres to the COPE policy. Editors and reviewers are encouraged to join COPE individually and agree to declare any conflict of interest.
The Editors-in-Chief and the editorial board may contribute to the published content. Still, a rigorous review workflow is implemented to ensure the integrity and quality of the review process. If one of the Editors-in-Chief or an editorial board member is listed as a (co)author, they will not be involved in the review process. They will not access the reviewers' identity in the case of anonymous, single-blind or double-masked reviews. When an Editor-in-Chief is a (co)author, selecting the editor who will handle the paper will fall on the (Co)editor-in-chief or another editor to maintain a fair and unbiased review process.
Review Process
EJTIR distinguishes itself from other journals in terms of the speed of our review process. Normally, our desk review is performed within a week. All submitted papers to EJTIR are subject to critical double-blind peer review by our editors and by external experts in the field. If a paper is sent out for external review, reports from our referees are sent back to the author within three to four months. If applicable, a second review round generally only takes a month or two. After acceptance, the paper will appear online within a week after receiving the formatted paper, as part of the current issue. To facilitate this speedy review process, we demand that authors do not take more than four months to revise their paper. If more time is taken, EJTIR as a rule will consider the resubmitted manuscript a new submission, which implies that the review process is started all over.
Research Data
TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly supports that the data underlying the journals are archived in a recognised research data repository in line with the TU Delft Research Data Framework Policy and will support data citation. Please visit this page for more information on policies.
Research Software
TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly encourages the adoption of the TU Delft Research Software Policy. This policy facilitates best practices on management and sharing of research software and facilitates proper recognition of the contribution of TU Delft researchers to software.
A similarity check is part of the TU Delft OPEN Publishing standard publication procedure. Authors submitting their article to the EJTIR should expect their work to go through a similarity analysis at any workflow stage. All articles submitted are checked with iThenticate software. The editor and publisher carefully analyse the reports. In case of suspected plagiarism, the authors will have two weeks to explain.
The journal also checks for AI-generated content. Articles will only be accepted if using AI-generated tools is part of the work.
Use of AI
The use of AI technologies in writing is gaining popularity. When used responsibly and appropriately in the context of human-driven research, it can facilitate innovation. However, authors remain responsible and accountable for the quality and content of their manuscripts, and these responsibilities remain uniquely human. With this in mind, the publisher asks that the authors not list AI as a co-author and disclose any use of AI tools (e.g., generative language-based, such as ChatGPT and others, for generating images, etc.) in the writing of their manuscripts. If applicable, acknowledge how you use AI tools for your article at the bottom of the References section and in the Acknowledgements section. Additionally, please specify the use of AI tools in the cover letter submitted before the peer review process. This policy is subject to review based on new developments.
Complaints and Appeals
Complaints
Complaints such as misconduct, authorship dispute or suspected conflict of interest should be brought to the attention of the publisher (publishing-lib@tudelft.nl) or the editorial board.
Author appeal
If an author wishes to appeal an editorial decision, the author may contact the journal's Editors-in-Chief. Their appeal decisions are final. This means that discussing or negotiating the final decision will be without effect and can be ignored.
Conflict of Interest
All COIs will be handled as follows by the journal in the first instance, then the publisher:
Disclosure: Anyone (editors, reviewers, authors and any other relevant parties) involved in the publishing process should disclose any potential conflicts of interest they may have
Evaluation: After disclosing the potential COI, it needs to be examined to determine its importance and possible impact on the publication process.
Management: An identified COI requires appropriate steps. Those steps may include stepping back from specific duties or decisions, removal from the publication process, or taking other actions to reduce the conflict.
Transparency: Any identified conflicts of interest should be transparently disclosed to relevant parties, including readers, authors, and reviewers.
COI can be mentioned after the section Acknowledgment of the publication.
Publication Notices and Changes
Any changes to the published content will be accompanied by a post-publication notice that will be permanently linked to the original content.
Publication notices include errors introduced by the journal (erratum), an author error (corrigendum), adding a (small) document to a published work to provide additional information (addendum), and retraction.
The Editors-in-Chief and the publisher handle publication notices through the following steps:
Review the proposed changes to the published content to determine if they are necessary and appropriate.
Preparing a post-publication notice that accurately reflects the changes made to the content.
Linking the post-publication notice to the original content clearly and prominently.
Distributing the updated content and the post-publication notice to relevant parties, including subscribers, indexers, and other databases.
Monitoring the impact of the changes on the academic record and making any necessary further updates or corrections.
Authorship
All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. For authors’ disputes, see the “Complaints and Appeals” section.
How to add extra authors before publication:
All co-authors must agree to add new (co)authors to the publication
Agreement must be collected and sent to the editor with an explanation
Guest Editors/Special Issues
EJTIR requires an agreement between the Guest Editor(s) and the Editors-in-Chief where the Guest Editor(s)’s role is clearly defined. Guest Editors are subject to the same rules as journal editors and adhere to TU Delft OPEN Publishing policies.
Metadata
EJTIR grants you the right to publish the metadata of the series, it's issues and articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0).
This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...
Authors are allowed to deposit a preprint, a Submitted version, an Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript) and a Published version (Version of record) of their work in an institutional or any other repository of their choice.
TU Delft OPEN Publishing is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research. We work in partnership with organizations as well as maintaining our own digital archive.
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in our published content are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing.
The responsibility for the content provided is exclusively of the author(s) concerned. TU Delft OPEN Publishing, EJTIR, the editors and reviewers are not responsible for errors in the contents or any consequences arising from the use of the information.
The opinions expressed in the publications of EJTIR do not necessarily represent the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing and the editors.
We follow an Open Access publishing principle, in which the author(s) are the sole owners of the copyright of the content published. The author(s) of the concerned article are responsible for any omissions or copyright violations. Our responsibility is to remove the concerned article from the journal once the query is raised.
