Smart Trucking - Status of Digital Transformation of the Trucking Industry: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract Industry 4.0 and the Smart Manufacturing paradigm are rapidly transforming the way business is conducted in the manufacturing industry. The underlying core technologies of the emerging digital transformation include the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics. While the shop floor is the main focus of these paradigms in the narrow sense, it is becoming more prevalent for other companies or business units along the digital supply network to investigate the potential to improve their processes by leveraging these technologies as well. One area that is traditionally reliant on human operators and optimization is the trucking industry. In recent years, this industry has started to explore how the above-mentioned technologies can be utilized to improve their operations, and new policies are further amplifying this process, e.g., by mandating Electronic Logging Device (ELD) to be used by commercial drivers in the USA. This development forces companies to collect digital, high-resolution data – and the question emerges how to utilize this data in the most value-adding way. In this paper, we analyze the current state of the art of digital transformation in the trucking industry by conducting a bibliometric study of recently published papers to identify the main research areas and themes in this field, the leading authors, countries, and journals in this domain. This work will provide the basis for further in-depth studies on optimization techniques and available case studies to provide theoretical input for practitioners and scholars.