The journal Transportation focuses on issues of relevance to the formulation of policy, the preparation and evaluation of plans, and the day-to-day operational management of transport systems. It concerns itself with the policies and systems themselves, as well as with their impacts on and relationships with other aspects of the social, economic and physical environment.

Although the transportation needs of cities and nations around the world differ in detail, there is much benefit to be derived by sharing research findings and practical experience. Transportation lends itself to information exchange by publishing carefully selected papers which advance the international fund of knowledge. Transportation is relevant to all parts of the world: industrialized, newly industrialized or developing. Its mission is simply to help improve the transportation of people and goods by bringing an improved understanding of the subject to the theorists, practitioners and policy makers who study it.