The task involves the writing of a research paper that provides a critical review of the literature on a
particular transport topic. The research paper therefore should take the form of a short ‘review article’:
There are some standard conventions for review articles, and a number of example review articles are
provided at the end of this document. Essentially a good review article will:
 Introduce the matter appropriately;
 Explain how the literature search was conducted;
 Appraise the literature, grouping it into key themes and highlighting the key research that has been
undertaken, involving the topic;
 Identify the key issue/s and debates;
 Consider the as yet incomplete research that may be required to resolve, or shed more light on,
disputed questions; and,
Importantly, you must use quality source materials, such as journal articles, books, book chapters,
peer-reviewed academic conference papers and major reports. Unpublished websites, Wikipedia and
the majority of other Internet sources are generally not considered quality sources as they have not
been through academic peer-review processes. Submissions that have not used at least 12-15
quality source materials will be penalised.
Useful places to commence searches for quality source materials include:
 Databases such as ProQuest, Web of Science, Scopus, Expanded Academic ASAP International
and the ScienceDirect databases, which are available via the Griffith University Information
Services (Library and Computing) website.
 Google Scholar also provides similar referencing via a wide set of journals.
 The various database searching options available within the TRIS and IRTD database, now linked
together within TRID, which may be found at: http://trid.trb.org/
 The State Library of Queensland, Brisbane City Council Library Services, and other local sources
outside the university.
 Of the databases, ScienceDirect contains a wide range of journals, many of which are transportspecific,
such as:
Journal of Safety Research;
Journal of Transport Geography;
Transport Policy;
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice;
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment;
It is also important to understand that we are not looking for submissions that comprise a section-bysection
rehash of the contents of each source, with no synthesis of the material and no connection
between the different components. The key to a good review article is to assimilate and synthesise the
material into a coherent framework that incisively identifies the issues and/or debates, including
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whether there are any contrary arguments (which there are for most of the topics suggested to
students). We want you to provide your own independent view, or critical insight of these
issues/debates, which will mostly come through how you group the material and highlight what it says
about the topic.
Topics
Students must choose topics that relate to questions of transport and land use planning. While students
should create their own research paper titles, the following is a list of acceptable topics:
1. Should cities prioritise rail-based or bus-based solutions to provide public transport services ?
2. Can road-pricing initiatives ‘solve’ traffic congestion problems, and what might concern us
about their use ?
3. How may car parking supply and pricing be a traffic demand management intervention ?
4. Is it possible to build your way out of traffic congestion through building more roads ?
5. Should we build dedicated cycle routes (eg bike lanes), and if so, why ?
6. Is induced traffic demand a fact or a myth ?