Sustainable transport infrastructure and economic returns: A bibliometric and visualization analysis

Sustainable transport infrastructure can determine the effect of countries transport-driven economic returns. Considering the economic, environmental, and social relevance and growing issues of CO₂ in the countries concerned, this study aims to examine sustainable transport infrastructure related to economic return through a bibliometric and visualization analysis from 2000 to 2019. First, to measure the status of sustainable transport infrastructure literature, we determine the number of publications produced per year. Second, we determine the most frequently cited articles and prominent journals on sustainable transport infrastructure. Third, we examine the co-occurrence of the author's keywords below the abstract. Fifth, we describe the bibliometric details in clusters and analyze the network link between reference, sources, and authors co-citations, and discuss the characteristics and structures of clusters. Sixth, we discuss the bibliographic relationship between authors, and finally, determine the country and the institutional network of co-authors. The obtained results identify that the most influential articles, journals, and authors that make a significant contribution to sustainable transport infrastructure studies and present the research sub-areas or themes related to sustainable transport infrastructure. Overall, the study found the paradigms of today, key research areas, and the link between the fields of sustainable transport infrastructure studies. In the meantime, this study also reveals the improvements in the main topics and sub-sections over the last 20 years and shows the changes in future areas of research. The study concluded that the findings could provide researchers with some insights and help to advance studies on sustainable transport systems.