The focus of Transportation Research: Part C is high-quality, scholarly research that addresses development, applications, and implications, in the field of transportation, of emerging technologies from such fields as operations research, computer science, electronics, control systems, artificial intelligence, and telecommunications, among others. The interest is not in the individual technologies or methodologies per se, but in their ultimate implications for the planning, design, operation, control, management, maintenance and rehabilitation of transportation systems, services and components.

Of particular interest are the impacts of emerging technologies on transportation system performance, in terms of level of service, capacity, safety, reliability, resource consumption and the environment, economics and finance, privacy, standards, and liability. Submissions in the following areas of transportation are encouraged by Part C: the impact of emerging technologies for all modes and for intermodal transportation; intelligent transportation systems; real-time operations; logistics; resource management; consumer/traveler adoption, acceptance and usage of new technologies; infrastructure applications of emerging technologies.