Aims and scope

Urban Lifeline provides a trans-disciplinary and holistic platform for the publication of cutting-edge research on novel theories, methodologies, applications and innovative technologies to enhance the sustainability, safety, resilience and intelligence of urban lifelines. Urban lifelines comprise interdependent infrastructure components, networks and systems. As the backbones of our societies, urban lifelines physically confront a myriad of challenges stemming from economic development, social wellbeing, environmental threats, climate change, and other natural and technical hazards. To address these global challenges, it is crucial to draw upon solutions from not only the conventional engineering disciplines but also from emerging technologies and their interactions with urban lifeline stakeholders and the general public. The Journal is committed to fostering the growth of a professional community of scholars and practitioners who are dedicated to advancing the science and engineering of urban lifelines. We strive to create a trans-disciplinary and holistic arena that transcends the current interdisciplinary boundaries for the global Urban Lifeline research communities.

The Journal covers a broad scope encompassing multi-disciplinary aspects of urban lifeline systems, and is intended to foster research towards actionable insights for improving the sustainability, safety, resilience and intelligence of critical urban lifelines. It particularly focuses on synergetic integration of advanced digital technologies and information technologies in enhancing safety and improving the maintenance of urban lifelines. In addition, the Journal welcomes contributions with trans-disciplinary perspectives addressing pressing societal implications in urban communities. To this end, topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Urban lifelines and infrastructures as networked interdependent systems, smart-city methodology and solutions, resilience to extreme events, adaption to climate change, lifecycle assessment and management
• Urban structural and geotechnical engineering: lifeline structures (such as bridges, tunnels, subways, critical buildings and building stock), underground space and connectivity, pipeline networks, power transmission networks, and telecommunication infrastructures 
• Transportation engineering and intelligent mobility: sustainable and resilient urban transportation systems, urban public transport systems, conventional urban logistics, intelligent connected transportation, shared mobility, intelligent logistics distribution, secured and intelligent digital and physical infrastructures
• Advanced information, communication and technologies (ICT) and applications: sensing, monitoring, detection, MEMS, computing, communication, IoT, robot, drone, digital twin, structural health monitoring, disaster early warning and monitoring, GIS and spatial modeling, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence
• Intelligent and sustainable construction: automation in construction and maintenance, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and VR/AR applications, renewable materials, 3D printing and other accelerated construction, eco-friendly construction, energy-efficient designs, green structures and sustainable lifeline systems
• Urban sociotechnical systems: urban/community resilience, risk-informed methodologies, decision/policy making, human dynamics, interconnectivity of lifeline engineering and economics, and management 
• Social- and human-centered engineering solutions: human-centered design and analytics, urban environments to promote well-being, ergonomics and human-system interaction, distributed human-machine cognition, and cultural engineering