Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review: Scopus, Scope, Metrics & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is Transportation Research Part E?

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review is a peer-reviewed Elsevier journal in the Transportation Research family. Its distinguishing emphasis is logistics. Its official scope spans classic logistics topics—such as transportation, material handling, packaging, warehousing and inventory—as well as operations-management and supply-chain themes including sustainability, risk and disruption, circular economy, and artificial intelligence.

The journal accepts a wide range of research methods. Elsevier explicitly describes analytical and operations-research methods, quantitative and qualitative empirical research, simulation, mixed methods, experiments, case studies, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and network analysis as compatible with the journal’s scope.

Researchers should consider the journal when the manuscript makes a strong contribution to logistics or logistics-linked transportation and when the research question, method, and contribution are demonstrably aligned with recent TR-E papers. Before submission, verify the latest Guide for Authors, current metrics, fees, editorial information, and institutional requirements.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Elsevier; the journal page identifies the publishing imprint as Pergamon.
• Scopus: indexed; supplied Scopus Source ID 20909.
• ISSNs: print 1366-5545; online 1878-5794.
• Current metrics shown by Elsevier: CiteScore 15.0 and Impact Factor 8.8.
• Core focus: logistics, transportation within logistics, operations management and supply-chain management.
• Peer review: double anonymized; suitable submissions are typically sent to at least two independent reviewers.
• Publishing model: hybrid—open access is available for an APC, while the subscription route has no publication fee charged to authors.
• Submission essentials: separate title page and anonymized manuscript, abstract up to 250 words, 1–7 keywords, highlights, editable source files, and complete declarations.

Journal Information at a Glance

What This Page Covers

• Aims and scope and what “logistics” means in this journal
• Scopus and other indexing information
• Current publisher-displayed journal metrics
• Article and research-method fit
• Manuscript preparation and double-anonymized review requirements
• Open-access and subscription publication options
• Ethics, authorship, competing interests, funding and AI disclosure
• A practical journal-fit and pre-submission checklist
• Ethical Contentxprtz support for publication readiness

Methodology and Sources

This journal profile was prepared from the supplied Scopus record details and Contentxprtz brief, then checked against authoritative sources including the official ScienceDirect journal page, Elsevier’s Guide for Authors, Elsevier’s journal insights and issue information, and the Scopus source identifier supplied for the journal. A 2022 retrospective article published in TR-E was used only to confirm the journal’s 1997 establishment in its current form and its predecessor relationship.

Journal metrics, fees, indexing coverage, editorial teams, special issues, submission systems and policies can change. The values on this page should therefore be treated as a verified snapshot rather than a permanent guarantee. Where an exact value was not available from the authoritative sources reviewed—such as current SJR, SNIP or CiteScore quartile—this page tells readers to verify the live database rather than inventing a number.

What Is Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review?

TR-E is a specialist international journal at the intersection of logistics and transportation research. Although the Transportation Research series contains several journals with overlapping transport interests, Part E distinguishes itself through logistics. This distinction matters for manuscript selection: a transportation paper is not automatically a TR-E paper. The research should explain why the transportation problem, model, data, policy question or technology contributes meaningfully to logistics, supply-chain operations, or a closely connected operational system.

The journal’s history also helps explain its identity. A TR-E retrospective published by Elsevier states that the journal was established in 1997 from its predecessor, Logistics and Transportation Review. The same retrospective characterises its development around logistics and transportation communities, including empirical and analytical logistics management, supply-chain models, transportation economics and infrastructure-related research.

Its readership is therefore likely to include logistics and supply-chain scholars, operations-research researchers, transportation economists and modellers, sustainability researchers, maritime and aviation researchers, urban-freight specialists, and professionals studying data-driven logistics systems. That breadth is an editorial opportunity, but only when the manuscript has a clear conceptual centre.

Journal Aims and Scope: What Research Fits?

Elsevier describes two broad layers of logistics research within TR-E. The first is “hard” or classic logistics: transportation, material handling, packaging, warehousing, inventory and related physical-flow problems. The second adds operations-management and supply-chain-management concepts to logistics, including sustainability, risk and disruption, circular economy, and artificial intelligence.

This means the journal can accommodate both optimisation-heavy work and managerial or empirical studies. The official scope expressly allows operations-research techniques such as game theory, queuing, dynamic programming and mathematical programming; empirical methods such as time series, regression and microeconomic analysis; simulation; mixed methods; controlled, laboratory and field experiments; case studies; machine learning; artificial intelligence; and network analysis.

Examples of potentially aligned topics

• Freight transportation and network design linked to logistics performance
• Inventory, warehousing, material handling and distribution systems
• Maritime, aviation, rail, road or multimodal logistics
• Supply-chain resilience, disruption and risk
• Humanitarian and emergency logistics
• Green logistics, decarbonisation and circular-economy systems
• Digital logistics platforms, AI, machine learning and data-driven decision support
• Last-mile, urban freight, e-commerce and platform logistics
• Routing, scheduling, capacity allocation and logistics optimisation
• Behavioural, market-design or economic questions with clear logistics consequences

Is Transportation Research Part E Scopus Indexed?

Yes. The supplied journal record gives Scopus Source ID 20909, and Elsevier’s journal insights page lists Scopus among the journal’s abstracting and indexing services. Elsevier also lists the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), and ABDC.

For university or PhD compliance, “Scopus indexed” should not be the end of the check. Institutions sometimes require a specific current coverage year, quartile, subject category, CiteScore percentile, JCR category, or approved-journal-list status. Those requirements are external to the journal itself. Authors should therefore save or document the live database evidence that corresponds to their institution’s rule at the time of submission.

Journal Metrics: CiteScore, Impact Factor, Quartile, SJR and SNIP

Elsevier currently displays a CiteScore of 15.0 and an Impact Factor of 8.8 on the journal page. These are useful signals of citation performance, but they should not be treated as a guarantee of manuscript quality, acceptance probability, reviewer response or future citations.

The Elsevier pages reviewed for this guide did not state current SJR, SNIP or CiteScore quartile values. Those indicators are available through Scopus Sources, but because they can update by reporting year and subject classification, this guide does not reproduce an unverified number. Check the live Scopus Source ID 20909 record when a current quartile, SJR or SNIP is required.

The journal does not publicly state an acceptance rate on the official pages reviewed. Do not rely on third-party estimates as though they were official statistics.

What Types of Articles and Research Does the Journal Publish?

The current ScienceDirect journal stream is dominated by research articles, and the journal also publishes special issues and article collections. The Guide for Authors is structured around original scholarly articles and does not provide a simple public acceptance matrix promising that every named manuscript category will be considered. Authors should select the article type offered in the live submission system and follow any type-specific instructions shown there.

Recent journal content illustrates the breadth of problems being addressed: traffic and mobility systems, shared warehousing, maritime transport-network resilience, UAV delivery logistics, ship-route optimisation, platform subsidy strategies, closed-loop supply chains and cloud supply-chain models. These examples should be used to understand editorial direction, not copied as a checklist of guaranteed topics.

Peer Review and Editorial Process

TR-E follows a double-anonymized peer-review process: author identities are concealed from reviewers and reviewer identities are concealed from authors. The editors first assess whether a submission is suitable for the journal. If it is considered suitable, Elsevier states that it will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for independent expert assessment, with editors making the final accept/reject decision.

To support anonymisation, authors must provide the title page and anonymized manuscript separately. The title page carries author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, declaration of interest, and corresponding-author contact details. The anonymized manuscript contains the main paper, references, figures and tables but should not contain identifying author information.

Elsevier currently displays journal-level timeline indicators of about 3 days from submission to first decision, 57 days to decision after review, 205 days from submission to acceptance, and 13 days from acceptance to online publication. These are publisher-reported journal indicators, not promises for an individual manuscript; actual timing varies by editorial screening, reviewer availability, revisions and paper complexity.

Manuscript and Submission Requirements

The official Guide for Authors requires editable source files for the submission. Word files should normally be in a single-column layout, while double-column formatting is permitted for LaTeX submissions. A PDF alone is not accepted as the source file.

Because submission instructions can change, prepare the manuscript against the live Guide for Authors immediately before uploading rather than relying on an older institutional template.

Open Access and Publication Fees

TR-E supports both open-access and subscription publication. Elsevier currently lists an open-access Article Publishing Charge of USD 4,030 excluding taxes; applicable institutional or funder arrangements may reduce the amount during submission. Authors choosing the subscription route are not charged a publication fee by the journal, and the resulting article is available to subscribers.

An APC is linked to the publishing route, not to acceptance. Payment does not purchase peer-review success or editorial approval. Authors should check their funder or institution for transformative agreements, open-access mandates, reimbursement rules and licence requirements before making the final publication-choice decision.

Publication Ethics and Author Responsibilities

The Guide for Authors directs researchers to Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics Policy. Submission implies that the work has not been published previously except in permitted forms such as a preprint, abstract, lecture, thesis or registered report; that the article is not under consideration elsewhere; and that all authors and responsible authorities approve the submission.

Authorship must reflect substantial contributions, critical drafting or revision, final approval and accountability for the work. Authors must disclose relevant competing interests and funding. The journal’s guidance also addresses changes to authorship, preprints, inclusive language, sex- and gender-based analysis where appropriate, and jurisdictional claims.

Elsevier’s guidance on generative AI places responsibility on human authors to verify accuracy, check sources, preserve originality, protect confidential information and disclose AI use when required. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Researchers should also follow their university, funder and discipline-specific rules, especially where confidential data, human participants or proprietary datasets are involved.

Who Should Consider Submitting?

TR-E may be a strong candidate for researchers whose primary contribution sits inside logistics and whose work is understandable to an interdisciplinary logistics/transport audience. This may include PhD scholars and faculty in logistics, supply-chain management, operations research, transportation science, industrial engineering, business analytics, maritime studies and related fields.

A practical journal-fit test

1. Scope sentence: Can you explain in one sentence why the paper advances logistics knowledge, not only transportation technology or a generic management topic?
2. Recent-paper match: Can you identify several recent TR-E papers that address comparable questions, methods or application domains?
3. Contribution: Is the novelty more than applying a familiar method to a new dataset without a meaningful theoretical, methodological or managerial advance?
4. Methodological credibility: Are assumptions, data, validation and robustness appropriate for the claims?
5. International relevance: If the study is highly local, does it produce lessons that extend beyond one operator, city, country or dataset?
6. Presentation: Does the manuscript make the logistics problem, gap, method, result and contribution easy to identify?

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

Only the editors can decide whether a specific paper is suitable, but researchers can reduce obvious fit problems before submission. Typical risk areas include a weak logistics connection; an incremental model with limited conceptual contribution; inadequate empirical design; insufficient validation; conclusions that exceed the evidence; poor explanation of managerial or policy relevance; outdated engagement with the literature; and failure to anonymize the manuscript correctly.

Language quality alone does not determine acceptance, but unclear writing can obscure novelty and make technically valid work difficult to assess. A manuscript should define its problem early, distinguish the gap from the broad topic, explain why the chosen method is appropriate, and connect findings back to logistics theory or decision-making.

How to Prepare a Stronger, Journal-Aligned Manuscript

As a practical publication-readiness step, begin by reading recent TR-E papers rather than relying only on the scope paragraph. Note how successful papers frame the logistics problem, position the literature, report assumptions, validate models, structure robustness or sensitivity analysis, and explain theoretical or managerial implications.

Then conduct an internal “editorial-screening” review. The title and abstract should immediately identify the logistics problem and contribution. The introduction should move from real research problem to literature gap to research question and contribution without repeating the same claim. Methods should be reproducible at the level expected by the field. Results should distinguish findings from interpretation. The discussion should explain what changes because of the evidence rather than simply restating numerical results.

Finally, perform a compliance pass: anonymisation, title-page details, abstract length, keywords, highlights, CRediT roles, declarations, reference completeness, figure readability, permissions, supplementary files and required statements. A strong manuscript can still be delayed or returned if submission files are incomplete.

Submission Workflow

1. Read the current TR-E aims and scope and recent papers.
2. Open the latest Guide for Authors and build a manuscript checklist.
3. Prepare the editable manuscript and separate title page.
4. Remove identifying information from the anonymized manuscript.
5. Prepare the abstract (≤250 words), 1–7 keywords and required highlights.
6. Check references, DOIs, figures, tables, permissions, funding, CRediT roles, competing interests and AI disclosures.
7. Choose the appropriate article type and submit through the journal’s official submission route linked from ScienceDirect.
8. Respond to editorial or reviewer comments point-by-point, distinguishing revisions made from respectfully justified disagreements.

How Contentxprtz Can Support Publication Readiness

Contentxprtz can ethically assist researchers with manuscript editing, academic proofreading, English-language polishing, journal-format checks, reference and citation consistency, abstract and highlight refinement, cover-letter editing, reviewer-response editing, manuscript assessment and journal-selection guidance. The goal is to improve clarity, compliance and scholarly communication while preserving the author’s research, interpretation and responsibility.

Support should never involve invented data, fabricated references, concealed authorship, misrepresentation of AI-generated material, or guarantees of publication. The final decision remains with the journal’s editors and reviewers.

Final Journal-Fit Checklist

• My research makes a clear contribution to logistics or logistics-linked transportation.
• I have compared the manuscript with several recent TR-E articles.
• The novelty is explicit in the title, abstract and introduction.
• The method, data and validation support the claims.
• The manuscript is anonymized correctly for double-anonymized review.
• The title page contains the required author and declaration information.
• The abstract is no more than 250 words and I have 1–7 keywords plus highlights.
• References are complete, consistent and cross-checked with in-text citations.
• Funding, competing interests, CRediT roles and AI use are disclosed where required.
• I have reconfirmed the current Guide for Authors, metrics and APC before submission.

Official Sources and Further Verification

• Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review — official ScienceDirect journal page
• Official Guide for Authors
• Journal Insights: metrics, indexing, APC and timelines
• Scopus Source ID 20909

Conclusion

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review is a well-established Elsevier journal for logistics-centred research that connects transportation, operations management, supply chains and emerging analytical technologies. Its broad methodological openness does not mean broad topical looseness: the manuscript still needs a convincing logistics contribution and a strong match with the journal’s recent research conversation.

For authors, the most effective strategy is to verify fit first, then prepare meticulously for the journal’s double-anonymized workflow, submission requirements and ethics policies. Metrics and indexing can help with institutional journal selection, but manuscript quality, contribution and editorial fit remain the more meaningful publication-readiness questions.

At Contentxprtz, we don’t just edit; we help ideas reach their fullest potential.