A brief report on the state of the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems

According to the 2011 Science Citation Index (SCI) Journal Citation Report released by Thomson Reuters in July 2011, our impact factor and five-year impact factor are 2.234 and 2.748, respectively—the highest among all publications in the transportation section. Except for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, which ranked number eight with an impact factor of 1.485, and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, which ranked number ten with an impact factor 1.184, all remaining journals in the top 26 list in the transportation section are from the transportation or civil engineering fields. In addition, the average time from submission to first decision has decreased from 175 days in 2008 to 156 days in 2009 and 123 days in 2010. From submission to final decision, the average time has dropped from 361 days in 2008 to 273 days in 2009 and then 231 to days in 2010. For 2011 paper submissions that had completed the review processes, the tentative average time from submission is 86 days to first decision and 116 days to final decision. Overall, we have achieved a 51% and 68% reduction in the average time to first decision and final decision, respectively, from 2008 to 2011. As of February 2012 at the Board of Governors meeting in Atlanta, GA, we have a backlog of 71 accepted papers, among which 21 were to be submitted, 10 were submitted and to be proofed, and 40 have been proofed and rapid posted. Compared with the backlog of 95 in October 2011, we have seen some improvement. The past three years have witnessed a steady climb in the number of accepted papers per month. From six in 2009 and nine in 2010, this number has increased to 15 in 2011. Assuming a reasonable annual increase of 5% and an average of 10 pages per paper, we can reasonably predict that the page budget should increase from the current 1680 to 1920 and 2040 in this year and 2013, respectively.