Update 28 April 2023: To accommodate additional demand, we have extended the final submission deadline to 29 May 2023.

Jump to:

• Introduction
• Key Themes
• Timetable
• Submission and review
• Guest Editors

Introduction

Data & Policy - a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Cambridge University Press (cambridge.org/dap) -  is pleased to be collaborating in 2023 with the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and TUMI (Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative) on a special collection dedicated to ‘Latin America: Sustainable Mobility Using Data’. 

The challenge of data applied to transport is immense. According to the post-pandemic report prepared in 2021 by CAF's "Hands on Data" initiative and the National Planning Department of Colombia (DNP), called "Use of data for decision-making in the public sector", the rapid development of digitization, new digital technologies and the data-driven economy have contributed to the exponential growth in data creation and consumption around the world (CAF, 2021). The European Union has estimated that approximately 90% of the data currently available has been generated in the last 2 years (Mohamed & Weber, 2020). However, although cities are making efforts to collect data, these are not necessarily being organized, centralized and focused on solving specific problems. The International Data Corporation (IDC) firm estimates that by the end of 2025, 80% of the world's data may be unstructured data.

Harnessing the power of more accurate data from concept to implementation through data collection, planning and monitoring supports transformative change in the transport sector by enabling data driven decision making. A recent investigation recognizes data as an asset for the generation of social and economic value, indicating that there could be a reduction of 15% in the cost of infrastructure services thanks to better use of data and digital technologies, and that this could increase the GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean by 6% in 10 years  (IDB, 2022).

The continuous discoveries and availability of data through new collection technologies open a space for innovative research and its applications in the global development of the transportation sector. Along these lines, development banks and cooperation agencies began to identify these new ways of responding to the challenges of public policies in a systematic, economical and transparent manner.

Focusing on Latin America, this collection of papers will include some existing contributions that have been provided to CAF, but we also call for new contributions to be submitted by the deadline below. 

Key Themes

To help substantiate the scope of the collection, you could put key themes or questions in a bulleted list:

• Urban mobility and accessibility in informal areas
• Land use planning and socio-spatial equity
• Public transport
• Active mobility, micro-mobility and pedestrians
• Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
• Mobile applications for mobility
• Equity in the use of public space
• Behavior change in transportation decisions
• Sustainable transport

Contributors may also be interested to see the topic mapping that The GovLab, along with CAF – The Development Bank of Latin America, the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI), and the New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO) - did for the The 100 Questions Initiative.

This call is oriented to academic research without losing sight of the practical needs for public policy decisions. Papers that have an impact on relevant issues, such as gender and diversity, informal areas, vulnerable populations, and the climate crisis will be highly valued as part of the collection.

Timetable 

• Call for Papers published: February 17th 2023
• Submission welcome as soon as ready, with final deadline of April 28th 2023  29 May 2023
• Target publication date: November 2023 (aligned the submission dates for the Transformation Research Board 2024)

Articles will be published as soon as possible after acceptance, allowing authors to disseminate their work without unnecessary delay. On publication, they will be added to a curated page for the collection. An editorial reflecting on their insights will be published when the collection is complete. 

Submission and review 

Authors should submit articles through the Data & Policy ScholarOne site, using the 'Latin America: Sustainable Mobility Using Data' special collection tag when prompted in the submission form. 

Articles should be submitted in English, but we welcome the inclusion of a Spanish- or Portuguese- language version of the full text or the abstract with the submission. These can be uploaded as supplementary material and will be published as additional files alongside the article, if accepted. The onus is on the author for the accuracy of the translation. 

Before submission, authors should familarise themselves with the Instructions for Authors. Note that Data & Policy has the following templates, which authors are not required to use but may help you with submission: 

• LaTeX template
• Word template
• Use Overleaf (a LaTeX-based collaborative authoring tool; read about benefits of this tool)

As described here, Data & Policy publishes research articles, commentaries, translational papers and data papers. Authors should select the most relevant category on submission. For this special collection, we particularly encourage the submission of translational papers: papers that are explicitly about the transfer of knowledge between research and practice.See this: Guide to writing a Translational Article (PDF)

Note that the journal asks all authors to provide a Data Availability Statement with the submission and encourages, but does not require, authors to make underlying data and replication materials available via an open repository. 

Guest Editors

• Catalina Vanoli (Development Bank of Latin America)
• Luisa Rubio (Development Bank of Latin America)
• Lena Plikat (GIZ, also known as Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH)