Several converging trends appear to reshape the way citizens and goods move about. These trends are social, including urbanization and population growth, and technological, such as increased automation and connectivity. All these factors influence the market for connected, automated, shared and electric (CASE) vehicles, which presents many opportunities and challenges. The pace of the shift to a profoundly penetrated market for CASE vehicles is far from secure. Such transformation depends on the development of technologies, consumer attitudes, and policies. An expanding body of research has investigated the potential social and behavioral results of deploying CASE vehicles. However, most academic literature to date concentrates on technological issues linked to these vehicles. There are several teams from federal and state agencies, OEMs, academia, startups, and consortiums working on this complex subject. This study investigates several academic papers, as well as federal and industry reports, considering all the stakeholders mentioned above. Its aim is to present a comprehensive picture of the implementation barriers and drivers of CASE vehicle usage and provide suggestions to solve them. The findings confirm that several issues are currently affecting the implementation of CASE vehicles on the road. Although there have been significant partnerships and collaborations between CASE vehicle stakeholders, namely technology companies, federal-state agencies, and academic scholars, considerable work is still required to solve the remaining barriers facing CASE-related technologies. This would enable decision-makers to create effective policies for future transportation networks and increase the speed of CASE vehicle market penetration to enhance road network's level of service.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show the feasibility of blockchain technology to perform as an infrastructure for improving built asset sustainability by providing all the necessary information for better decision making at all the stages of its life cycle. Design/methodology/approach: Blockchain technology can be used as a tool to build a reliable and secure decentralized information system to capture and disseminate all the data required for different sustainability assessment models. A model is designed and tested through a synthetic scenario to substantiate the research objective with empirical work. Findings: It is shown that blockchain can revolutionize the current state of knowledge for long-term sustainability thinking and provide necessary information in different stages of the life cycle of a built asset. With the proposed decentralized, transparent and comprehensive database using blockchain, the life cycle assessment methods can become much more inclusive and reliable. The new holistic analysis of the built asset sustainability enables better decision making in design, build, operation and demolition of each asset. Originality/value: This paper proposes and tests a model for using blockchain as an infrastructure to support built asset sustainability. Practitioners from different backgrounds at different stages of a built asset life cycle can use such a network to make better decisions and better assess the sustainability of their built assets.

Purpose: Smart contracts using blockchain technology (BCT) is a tool that decentralizes authority and makes it easier to upgrade the contract administration process by providing an efficient system. Current literature provides a good overview of contracts in the construction industry; however, the specific details of BCT's smart contracts applications in the three categories have not been addressed adequately: (1) information quality, (2) enhancing project schedule and progress payment time and (3) reducing conflicts among project stakeholders. Thus, this study aims to analyze smart contracts using BCT by creating a computerized contract model, specifically evaluating its impact on the three identified categories.Design/methodology/approach: In this paper BCT-SmContract was developed through an automated program that utilizes blockchain to define the contractual agreements between different parties in a construction project. BCT-SmContract model provides a new technique to overcome the current challenges associated with factors identified in this study, i.e. (1) information quality, (2) enhancing project schedule and progress payment time and (3) reducing conflicts among project stakeholders. Afterward, the model was tested to ensure validity and reliability through a construction project.Findings: The findings indicated that BCT-SmContract was approximately 90% faster to execute the contract and 100% accurate in reflecting the correct information about the project status, resulting in reduced conflicts.Originality/value: This study has contributed in upgrading the traditional contracting method in construction by developing an automated smart contract model to enhance the processes and achieve higher accuracy.