---
title: "Autonomous vehicles research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “autonomous vehicles” appeared in 1,168 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (622), AI (303) and economics (130)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/autonomous-vehicles
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/autonomous-vehicles.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “autonomous vehicles” appeared in 1,168 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (622), AI (303) and economics (130). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “autonomous vehicles”

Research on “autonomous vehicles” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “autonomous vehicles” appeared in 1,168 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (622), AI (303) and economics (130).
- 148 of them were published in 2025, against 46 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Tsinghua University (22), Tongji University (21) and Southeast University (20).
- The journals publishing most of them were Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies (118), Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice (62) and Expert Systems with Applications (61).
- The most-cited of them is “Self-driving cars: A survey” (Expert Systems with Applications, 2020), with 1,225 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 33 | 47 | 63 | 55 | 86 | 53 | 53 | 74 | 67 | 91 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 5 | 6 | 9 | 17 | 26 | 49 | 51 | 50 | 52 | 38 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 3 | 10 | 16 | 20 | 6 | 7 | 12 | 14 | 19 | 23 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 5 | 10 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 9 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 46 | 70 | 102 | 101 | 137 | 123 | 127 | 150 | 148 | 164 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 118 |
| 2 | [Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice.md) | 62 |
| 3 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 61 |
| 4 | [Transport Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transport-policy.md) | 52 |
| 5 | [Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-e-logistics-and-transportation-review.md) | 22 |
| 6 | [Transportation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation.md) | 20 |
| 7 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 18 |
| 8 | [Research in Transportation Business & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-transportation-business-management.md) | 18 |
| 9 | [Transportation Research Part B Methodological](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-b-methodological.md) | 17 |
| 10 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 16 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 22 |
| 2 | [Tongji University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tongji-university.md) | 21 |
| 3 | [Southeast University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southeast-university.md) | 20 |
| 4 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 16 |
| 5 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 15 |
| 6 | [University of Wisconsin–Madison](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-wisconsinmadison.md) | 15 |
| 7 | [National University of Singapore](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/national-university-of-singapore.md) | 14 |
| 8 | [Nanyang Technological University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanyang-technological-university.md) | 13 |
| 9 | [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/massachusetts-institute-of-technology.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Delft University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/delft-university-of-technology.md) | 11 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 233 |
| 2 | United States | 144 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 54 |
| 4 | Hong Kong | 34 |
| 5 | Germany | 32 |
| 6 | Australia | 31 |
| 7 | Singapore | 30 |
| 8 | South Korea | 29 |
| 9 | Canada | 27 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 21 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | mixed traffic | 47 |
| 2 | human-driven vehicles | 30 |
| 3 | traffic congestion | 28 |
| 4 | technology acceptance | 24 |
| 5 | [technology adoption](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/technology-adoption.md) | 24 |
| 6 | ride-hailing | 21 |
| 7 | [mode choice](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mode-choice.md) | 20 |
| 8 | public acceptance | 20 |
| 9 | road safety | 18 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,225 | 16.3 | [Self-driving cars: A survey](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.113816) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2020-08-04 | Claudine  Santos Badue, Rânik Guidolini, Raphael  Vivacqua Carneiro et al. |
| 2 | 1,194 | 10.1 | [The Future of Retailing](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2016.12.008) | [Journal of Retailing](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing.md) | 2017-01-12 | Dhruv Grewal, Anne L. Roggeveen, Jens Nordfält |
| 3 | 995 | 8.6 | [User preferences regarding autonomous vehicles](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2017.01.010) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2017-03-09 | Chana Joanne Haboucha, Robert Ishaq, Yoram Shiftan |
| 4 | 868 | 8.4 | [Autonomous vehicle perception: The technology of today and tomorrow](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2018.02.012) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2018-03-08 | Jessica Van Brummelen, Marie O’Brien, Dominique Gruyer et al. |
| 5 | 844 | 8.9 | [The roles of initial trust and perceived risk in public’s acceptance of automated vehicles](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2018.11.018) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2018-12-04 | Tingru Zhang, Da Tao, Xingda Qu et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Robotaxis and the ride-hailing market](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/robotaxis-and-ride-hailing.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “autonomous vehicles”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/autonomous-vehicles

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-autonomous-vehicles,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “autonomous vehicles”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/autonomous-vehicles}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).