Maritime transport and policy research over the past 50 years: a review across four maritime journals

Journal focused bibliometric studies, especially those examining leading or highly relevant journals, are widely acknowledged as an effective way to capture the intellectual structure of a field. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of four important journals which have strong orientation in maritime transport and policy field using R-Bibliometrix package and VOSviewer. The final dataset consists of 2,889 articles published between 1976 and 2024. The results mapped the intellectual research landscape of the field by identifying leading authors, institutions, regions, influential articles, and major research clusters. Keyword co-occurrence analysis shows that the most frequently discussed topics include ports operations, logistics, container shipping, maritime safety, and climate change adaptation. The field also engages with promising areas of human-centred issues such as seafarer, maritime education and training, human factors, human error and non-technical skills. The findings show an interesting direction that integrates economic and technical operations with human and societal dimensions. Additionally, the findings potentially provide insights for researchers and practitioners seeking collaborations or directions, and policymakers seeking priorities in the maritime transport and policy domain.