Dear Colleagues,

Many cities are already taking significant steps to achieve better hardware for social urban ecosystems. The quality of the surface and materials, as well as sensors for traffic and road control, intelligent transport systems (ITSs), and new forms of micromobility and accessibility can greatly improve our lifestyle and mobility and the economy and efficiency of smart cities. Furthermore, in the COVID-19 age, rethinking public space and urban mobility becomes ineluctable to create a resilient environment and therefore address its negative impact: social exclusion, loss of social relationships, risky human activities in closed and crowded spaces, and inhibition of economic and commercial activities.

Innovative projects and research are offering a new “vision” of a smart city and help to understand how new technologies and approaches will transform existing streets to the streets of the cities of tomorrow. Bicycles, pedestrians, parking spots, public transport, and sharing–mobility systems and spaces will interoperate on these streets. Thus, this Special Issue on “Smart and Sustainable Streets” focuses on urban streets and their transformations toward smart, sustainable, inclusive, and safe spaces for citizens and for city users in general.

For these reasons, urban streets must be interpreted in a more complex way: the functions of urban spaces must also have as their purpose the improvement of citizens’ needs and perceptions. A new vision, also focused on high-tech features, rethinks these places as relational spaces: interactions of pedestrians are not only a material or physical matter but are based on connected information environments. The urban spaces environment evolves into a “digital ecosystem”: communication, information, and cognitive function have a crucial role in the distribution of pedestrian and traffic flow, considering urban space and street reconstruction not exclusively as a physical frame. All individuals can be pedestrians, drivers, bus passengers or bikers and they have different needs, abilities, and purposes; thus, to increase pedestrian space, the urban environment has to satisfy human heterogeneity.

Pedestrians do not only walk, but they also stay in public spaces for the purposes of shopping, meeting, eating, leisure, and spending time alone or with others. When the conditions for life on foot are improved, walking activities, health outcomes, and social and recreational interaction grow.

More roads lead to more traffic; better conditions for bicyclists lead to more people riding bikes. This latter condition is satisfied by improving the quality conditions for pedestrians, through not only the intensification of pedestrian traffic, but also with an increase in the quality of life of the city.

Important areas of concern regarding smart cities and sustainable mobility include but are not limited to:

• Human factors and travel behavior;
• Stormwater management with green streets;
• Greenway planning;
• Safer and more resilient mobility;
• Street design for emergency responses;
• Traffic analysis and mixed used development;
• Urban inclusive design for urban spaces;
• Recycled and reused materials;
• Alternative and multifunctional materials;
• Circular economy;
• Innovative and integrated road network functions;
• Infrastructures for connected and autonomous mobility;
• Sensors smart grid for mobility;
• Sustainable infrastructures and materials;
• Traffic management and safety;
• Infrastructures’ energetic impact and mitigation; ITS and info mobility;
• Infrastructures and monitoring of its components;
• Road network maintenance and management;
• The future view of road design.

These topics will be of interest to researchers and administrations that deal with smart mobility, accessible and sustainable infrastructures, as well as innovative transport management and applied technologies, but also technologies serving citizen mobility needs.

Prof. Dr. Mauro Coni
Prof. Dr. Francesco Pinna
Prof. Dr. Francesca Maltinti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• smart cities
• sustainable mobility
• human factors and travel behavior
• green streets
• greenway planning
• transport planning and management
• sensors
• vulnerable users
• intelligent transport systems (ITS) and infomobility
• COVID-19
• safer and more resilient mobility
• traffic analysis
• street design for emergency
• urban inclusive design for urban spaces
• recycled and reused materials
• alternative and multifunctional materials
• circular economy
• innovative network functions
• infrastructures for autonomous mobility
• sensors smart grid for mobility
• sustainable infrastructures and materials
• traffic managment and safety
• infrastructures’ energetic impact and mitigation
• infrastructures and monitoring of their components
• road network maintenance and management
• future road design