Mission, focus and scope

Traffic Safety Research (TSR) is an interdisciplinary journal with a clear objective to contribute to the global transition toward the Safe System approach in road transportation.

Mission statement

The TSR was founded in response to a growing concern: the increasing volume of traffic safety publications that offer little to no real-world impact on actually ‘saving lives in traffic’. This reflects a broader issue in modern academic publishing—where quantity often outweighs quality, and metrics are prioritized over meaning. While this model may serve the interests of profit-driven publishing houses, it undermines the true purpose of science.

In contrast, the TSR is committed to a different path:

  1. Non-profit orientation. The TSR operates as a non-profit initiative. While we must cover operational costs, there is no incentive to publish more for the sake of revenue. This allows us to focus on value, not volume.
  2. Quality over quantity. We aim to publish fewer, but carefully selected, high-quality, methodologically sound papers. Our long-term vision is to become a benchmark for excellence in the field (The Lancet of traffic safety).
  3. Impact driven research. We prioritize research that is meaningful and capable of making a tangible difference, especially work grounded in Safe System thinking.
  4. Rigorous editorial standards. Submissions that fail to address real-world problems or lack potential to improve traffic safety practices will be firmly declined. We do not support publishing for the sake of publishing.
  5. Supportive author experience. The TSR offers a personal and constructive editorial process. Our team is committed to guiding authors through the complexities of scholarly publishing while upholding the journal’s values.
  6. Empowering LMIC researchers. We are particularly committed to supporting publications from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We recognize that research from these regions often faces challenges related to limited funding and/or lower-quality data. Nonetheless, we hold all submissions to a high standard of methodological rigor and expect robust and transparent research design, analysis, and interpretation.

By fostering rigorous, meaningful, and impactful research, the TSR aims to be a catalyst for real-world improvements in traffic safety worldwide.

Focus and scope

The TSR publishes high-quality research from a wide range of disciplines—including engineering, psychology, sociology, economics, medicine, political science, and other relevant fields—that help to explain and address road traffic injuries and fatalities.

The journal particularly encourages:

  • proactive methodologies that anticipate and prevent risks rather than merely reacting to them
  • multidisciplinary perspectives that reflect the complex, systemic nature of traffic safety challenges.

The TSR's topics cover (but are not limited to):

  • system analysis and policy research related to road safety
  • in-depth exploration and causal explanation of accident mechanisms
  • safety aspects of road user behaviour, including social and psychological influences
  • safety of specific groups in traffic, such as cyclists, pedestrians, children or elderly
  • medical, economical, psychological and other consequences of accidents
  • methodological development covering a wide palette of methods such as accident modelling, in-depth investigations, data linkage, self-reporting, surrogate measures of safety, behavioural observations and naturalistic studies, virtual reality, micro-simulations, etc.
  • innovative approaches and explorative studies that bring in new theoretical insights or explanatory mechanisms (even if based on smaller datasets)
  • development and evaluation of road traffic safety counter-measures
  • state-of-the-art knowledge summaries and literature reviews.

The primary criteria for paper selection are scientific excellence and a demonstrable contribution to practical knowledge in the field of traffic safety. To support editors in their decision making, an operational list of quality criteria has been developed. In a nutshell, the authors ...

... should consider submitting to the journal if:

  • The paper reports innovative ideas or concepts in the field of road traffic safety, even if the sample size is limited but the methods or results are ground-breaking.
  • The work provides new evidence for better comprehension of the mechanisms behind road accidents occurrence.
  • The findings suggest counter-measures to universally recognized safety problems from infrastructure, vehicle, road users, post-crash care or policy perspectives.
  • The paper reports methodological approaches on traffic safety analysis that represent a clear advancement beyond the state-of-the-art.

... should not submit to the journal if:

  • The topic of the paper is outside road traffic safety domain.
  • The paper lacks solid and clear methodological approach.
  • The primary goal of the paper is application of advanced mathematical modelling or a high-tech solution rather than answering a research question related to road traffic safety.