Journal of Traffic and Transportation Research

Journal of Traffic and Transportation Research (JTTR) started to publish on April, 2018 in an attempt to contribute to the relevant national and international literature, and to increase the interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and experience for practitioners and decision makers.

Publishing semi-annually, with a double-blind peer review policy, on April and October, empirical, review or case studies written in Turkish or English, employing predominantly quantitative, qualitative or both methods, not published elsewhere previously, not accepted for publication or not in the reviewing process are considered for evaluation in the scope of JTTR.

JTTR broadly aims to publish studies about human, vehicle, physical and social environment factors in road and trip safety with a multidisciplinary approach in relation to safety in road traffic, railway, aviation and similar contexts, design, organization and enforcement. JTTR provides free access to the content it publishes by supporting the open access policy.

Several broad research subjects that can be considered for evaluation in the scope of JTTR are presented below:

Human, vehicle, and environment factors in traffic and transportation context

Policy, planning, and decision making processes in traffic and transportation context

Countermeasure implementation and evaluation

Modelling and statistical analysis of accident data

Accident and injury epidemiology

Emergency situation and case planning in traffic and transportation context

Trauma in traffic and transportation context

Intelligent transportation systems

Several broad research subjects that can be considered for evaluation in the scope of JTTR are presented below:

Human, vehicle, and environment factors in traffic and transportation context

Policy, planning, and decision making processes in traffic and transportation context

Countermeasure implementation and evaluation

Modelling and statistical analysis of accident data

Accident and injury epidemiology

Emergency situation and case planning in traffic and transportation context

Trauma in traffic and transportation context

Intelligent transportation systems

Writing Rules

Please refer to the Style and Grammar Guidelines referenced by the Publication Manual (7th Edition).

The manuscript (except for the Tables and Figures) should be in 12 point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and aligned justified. Page number should be added to the top right corner of the page and the title page should be the first page. All pages of the manuscript should contain a page number.

WARNING: Articles should be written according to rules on this page. The formatting of the accepted article will be done by JTTR after completion of the review process.
The manuscript should contain Title Page, Abstract, Turkish Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References, and (if applicable) Appendix. Title Page, Abstract, Turkish Abstract, Introduction, and References should start on a new page.

Title Page: A running head, main title, author and affiliation information should be included in the Title Page. All this information should be placed in the top half of the page; centered; and the initials of each word should be capitalized. The title should be reflective of the main theme of the manuscript. The running head should be placed in the top left corner of each page in capital letters.

Abstract: This part should follow the title page and start after the centered title “Abstract”. It should start without indentation and include a comprehensive summary composed of 150-250 words. The “Abstract” should mainly comprise the aim of the study, variables or associations investigated, brief information about participants, method, and results. Any information that is not included in the manuscript as well as cited statements should also not be included in the “Abstract”. Keywords, not more than five words or phrases, should be added below the “Abstract”. (APA-Sample Abstract). Turkish abstract is the Turkish version of the abstract and should also include the title of the study in Turkish.

Headings and subheadings: Headings might include several levels indicated by APA publication guidelines. Headings levels may change depending on the length and content of the manuscript, and usually do not exceed 5 levels. Title of the study is re-written before the beginning of introduction. In this title, all initials are capitalized. The title is not written in bold. The title is accepted as a first level heading. If the following headings are of similar levels as the title, they could be accepted as first level headings; if they are subheadings, they could be accepted as second level headings. Levels of the remaining headings and subheadings are determined with the same way (by importance level).

Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

The Journal of Traffic and Transportation Research (JTTR), accepts generating knowledge via scientific methods and distributing it in an objective manner as the basic principle in its publication policy. In line with this principle, our journal pays utmost attention to abiding by the publication ethics with highest standards. The processes taking place in this line are directly reflected on the studies which are considered in the scope of our journal. For these processes to proceed in line with the publication ethics, editors, reviewers, authors, and all other parties involved must comply with the ethical principles. For this reason, publication ethics and open access policy of the JTTR require all involved parties to comply with the guidelines and policies (such as Committee on Publication Ethics Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors) published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Ethical principles and standards with which editors, reviewers, and authors are expected to comply are stated below.

Responsibilities of the Editor(s) and the Editorial Board

Editors try to inform reviewers, authors, researchers, and readers, to answer their questions, and to act within the principles of clarity in situations that require additional explanation.
Editors pay attention to the originality and contribution to the scientific literature, the readers, and researchers, in manuscripts considered in the scope of JTTR.
In making decisions regarding articles, editors consider the scope of the journal, original contribution to the field, validity and reliability of the methods that are employed, clarity of the language.
Editors include the manuscripts in the pre-review process and consider positive evaluations of the reviewers as much as possible.
Editors, as stated in the publication policy, implement the blind review and evaluation processes, keep personal identity information of the authors private, and provide objective evaluation processes in due time for each article.
Editors take the professional fields of the reviewers into account when choosing them, and provide that the articles are evaluated objectively and independently.
Editors consider if there is a conflict of interest or common interest between the editors, reviewers, and author(s) in order to ensure objective evaluation of the article.
Editors work through generating a reviewer pool composed of researchers from a wide range of fields and updating it constantly.
Editors prevent communication of non-scientific evaluations that do not comply with academic etiquette.
Editors establish effective communication with all parties taking part in the publication process and arrange meetings periodically in order to maintain this communication.
Editors make sure that the personal data is protected in articles evaluated in the scope of the journal; they keep personal data of authors, reviewers, and readers in private.
Editors pay attention to the protection of human and animal rights in the articles evaluated in the scope of the journal, emphasize that the clear approval of the participants that contributed to the article is documented, and rejects articles if approval of the ethics committee is not provided.
Editors make sure errors, inconsistencies, or misleading errors in manuscripts in evaluation are corrected.
Editors protect the intellectual property rights of the published articles, defend the rights of the journal and the author(s) in case of a violation. Also, editors take the necessary precautions to ensure that the content of the published articles does not infringe the intellectual property rights of other publications.
Editors consider consistent critics for the articles published in the journal and allow author(s) to react to these critics.
Editorial Board determines, performs, and updates journal policies regarding various subjects such as publication, evaluation process and ethical principles. They are also responsible from taking necessary precautions against violation of intellectual property rights, non-scientific/unethical conduct, plagiarism, and citation abuse in evaluation and publication processes.
Editorial Board prepares a “Guide for Authors” that includes necessary information for authors and “Reviewer Evaluation Form” that reviewers can use in the evaluation process. The Board updates these forms constantly based on current needs.
Editorial Board determines incentive policies for the reviewers, author(s), readers, and all other parties involved.
Editorial Board archives records of each article in an easily accessible manner electronically.

Responsibilities of the Reviewers

In the article evaluation process of the JTTR, double-blind reviewing principle is applied. In the scope of this principle, reviewers and author(s) of an article do not recognize each other. Reviewers and authors cannot directly communicate. The article evaluation forms and the notes stated on the text and the correction requests are forwarded to the author(s) by the editors anonymously through the journal management system.
Reviewers who will evaluate the articles submitted to the JTTR bear the ethical responsibilities below:
Reviewers should only agree to evaluate articles suitable to their field of expertise.
Reviewers should pay attention to being objective and confidentiality when evaluating articles. In accordance with this principle, they should dispose of the articles they have reviewed at the end of the evaluation process, only use them after being published. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political stance, and commercial concerns should not affect the evaluation.
If the reviewers realize that there is a conflict of interest or a common interest, they should refuse to evaluate the article and inform the editors about the situation.
Reviewers should make the evaluation using constructive language in accordance with academic etiquette; avoid personal comments containing insult and hostility.
If they agree to evaluate, the reviewers should convey their reviews regarding the article within the time limit given to them.

Responsibilities of the Authors

Author(s) cannot send any article that they published or sent to be published elsewhere to the JTTR.
Articles submitted to the JTTR by author(s) must be original articles.
In line with ethical principles, author(s) must correctly cite the sources they used in writing the article.
The names of persons who did not sufficiently contribute to the article should not be added as authors, and changing the order, removing, or adding author(s) of the article submitted for evaluation should not be requested.
Individuals who have a conflict of interest or a common interest related to the article to be evaluated must be notified to the editors.
In case any information or raw data is requested during the evaluation process, the author(s) must present the requested information to the Editors.
The author(s) must document the rights to use the data they utilized in their articles, permission for research-analysis, or the consent of the participants who took part in their study.
The author(s) are expected to contact the Editor to inform, correct or retract their article in case they notice any error in the evaluation, early-view or electronically published article.
The author(s) must have obtained ethical approval for research that requires data collection from human or animal subjects with quantitative or qualitative methods such as experiments, questionnaires, scales, interviews, observations, focus group studies that require ethics committee decision. They must state that they have this approval, the name of the ethics committee, the date, and the number of decision on the last page of the manuscript they sent for evaluation, after Author Notes if they have and before References, and in the Methods section, to the JTTR. Additionally, they must upload the document showing the ethics committee decision to the system with the submission of the article. Also, case reports must include information about obtaining informed consent/obtaining consent form in the article.
The author(s) should present examples to their adherence to ethical principles in the data collection process (such as obtaining permission from others to use documents such as scale, questionnaire, photograph) in the article. It must be stated in the articles that all the processes were conducted in line with the copyright regulations for intellectual and artistic works, research and publication ethics. In case the research was carried out with human and animal subjects, it must be reported that the research was conducted in accordance with international reports, guidelines, and other standards.
Ethics committee approval is not required from the author(s) of review articles. However, in articles that do not require an ethics committee decision, it should be stated that this decision is not mandatory, on the last page and method section of the article.

Notifying the Editor of Non-Compliance with Ethical Principles

In case of any unethical situation related to any subject, person or event in the submission or evaluation processes of JTTR or a published article that is in early view or in the process of evaluation, it should be reported to tuad@metu.edu.tr address by e-mail. The editorial board will investigate the situations and holds the right to notify the ethical committees.