Driven by new emerging technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, and federated learning, diversified mobility demands tend to be managed and fulfilled by intelligent and automated systems without the need for human intervention. This trend illustrates the evolution from intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to autonomous transportation systems (ATS), which can sense user demands, learn decisive knowledge, rearrange system supplies, and provide intelligent services automatically and rationally. ATSs have great potential, and so it is of great theoretical significance and practical value to study its challenges, enabling technologies, platforms, and applications.

As ATSs renovate the portfolios of ITS services, challenges arise in implementing a compatible and scalable system by adopting emerging technologies, and it is essential to overcome these challenges to reach a new balance between auto-sensed demand and auto-organized supply. In addition, with growing concerns about data security and user privacy, the AI part of mobility services is gradually moving from centralized clouds to federated edges to harness the plentiful sensing and computing capabilities of ATS in a collaborative and privacy-preserving manner. Finally, a novel cyber-physical system capable of simulating, validating, and optimizing system designs becomes critical for ATS as a sandbox to ensure the integrity and quality of autonomous and intelligent services to be implemented.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collate original research and surveys on autonomous transportation systems enabled by emerging technologies. We welcome both original research and review articles.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• The design principles, service architectures, and applications of ATS
• Semantic and adaptive data management strategies and mechanisms for ATS
• Methods and techniques for data security and user privacy for ATS
• AI-enabled, edge-based, and federation-supported ATS
• Cyber-physical systems designing, simulating, and optimizing ATS