ITS-Frame: a framework for multi-aspect analysis in the field of intelligent transportation systems

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have been developed rapidly over the last few decades because of global urbanization and industrialization. ITS involve a wide range of different technologies and applications such as automatic road enforcement, dynamic traffic light sequence, and as a result, a significant number of scientific papers have been published in the field of ITS. In this paper, we present a useful insight into the development of ITS area by systematically analyzing the publications over the period of 20 years. First, we identify the most cited papers and most impactful authors in the field. Second, in the aspect of topic analysis, we identify some active keywords. To do so, we develop a keyword co-occurrence network to find topics in the ITS field. Finally, for the collaboration pattern analysis, we construct two networks to interpret collaboration patterns, including a co-authorship network, and an author co-keyword network to show the development and research tendency of ITS. Some most interesting findings from our investigation include the following: 1) Besides the USA, China and Europe have begun to play an increasingly significant role in this field and 2) GPS, traffic control, and road safety show an upward trend from the analysis of the evolution of ITS research topics, given the rise of new research areas such as autonomous vehicles. Our first-hand investigation and analysis of the literature provides a valuable reference to research activities in the development of ITS field and presents worthy insights on the current status and future technical trends.