Introduction: Covering Blind Spots of the Transport Datascape in Times of Turbulence

This chapter presents an introduction to the ISCTSC Special Issue of Transport Research Procedia. It introduces the ISCTSC conference series, the global environment for transport data collection and the resulting topical focus of the 2025 13th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods conference held in Da Nang, Vietnam, in March 2025. This introductory chapter synthesizes the discussions held at the Da Nang conference and provides an overview of the contributions included in these Procedia. Since its initiation in the 1970s, this conference has been held in different countries around the globe, involving an growing group of enthusiastic and generous specialists, willing to share their knowledge. Presentations and workshop discussions at the 13th conference continued to address methodological innovations and challenges of transport data collection but also extended to fields such as standardization, data governance and dissemination. This introduction to the conference Procedia presents overarching outcomes from the workshops and conference discussions as well as resulting challenges and conclusions.