A Cross-Comparative Analysis of Transportation Safety Research

Abstract

This article aims to identify the main trends of safety research in relation to different transportation modes (aviation, rail, road, and ship) based on the chosen methods, emphasizing the same and different features in the research topics. In the context of the main goal, quantitative content analysis was chosen, which identified the trends and domains of safety research, and text-mining software Leximancer was used for processing concept maps and reports showing semantic structures. The article found that the dominant topics in all modes of transportation are safety issues, mostly related to incidents/accidents. All modes of transportation have similarities in research (e.g., management, safety, and legislation are discussed), but differences regarding the specific operation prevail. The article emphasizes what trends in safety research dominate and how they differ. It has also been proven that, even though it is safety research, security issues can also appear because the two concepts form an indivisible complex in many ways.