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Urban Traffic Management under Heavy Rainfalls – A Multi-Criteria Scientometric Study

Reza MEHDIZADEH ANVIGH*1, José FIGUEIREDO SILVA2, Joaquim MACEDO1
* Corresponding author
1 University of Aveiro, Department of Civil Engineering, RISCO, Aveiro, PORTUGAL
2 University of Aveiro, Department of Environment and Planning, Aveiro, PORTUGAL
E-mail:
mehdizadeh@ua.pt, jfs@ua.pt, jmacedo@ua.pt
Pages: 71-85

Abstract. The efficient management of the urban traffic, especially under heavy rainfalls, is a subject of significant environmental, economic and social impact. Hence, exploring the most efficient ways to deal with such conditions is of high importance in order to prevent crisis after heavy rainfalls. In this study, a total of 4087 published papers on urban traffic management strategies, were retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) database using a set of relevant keywords and further critically analyzed. Articles in this field have started to be published since 1955 and considerably increased in number around the beginning of the 2000s. A scientometric study was performed on the achieved results considering several parameters including contributing authors, published studies and citations received. The position of the traffic management under heavy rainfalls was also identified and critically discussed, considering the existing scientific gaps to be addressed by further studies in this field. According to results, these works demonstrate a sigmoidal trend from 1955 to 2019. Also, China and the United States were identified as the leading countries in terms of the scientific output in this area. Among the journals with more published papers, “Transportation Research Record” has received the largest number of citations for the papers published on management of urban traffic. It was also noted that traffic management under heavy rainfalls is still an understudied subject. A detailed discussion on the scientific development in this field is also provided, including the potential applications of scientometry.

K e y w o r d s:  traffic management, heavy rainfall, urban traffic, scientometry, Multi-Criteria Analysis