A Review of COVID-19-Related Literature on Freight Transport: Impacts, Mitigation Strategies, Recovery Measures, and Future Research Directions
Ahmed Karam, Abdelrahman E. E. Eltoukhy, Ibrahim Abdelfadeel Shaban, El-Awady Attia
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions in the freight transport sector. The number of studies on the impact of COVID-19 on freight transport and possible mitigation strategies are growing. However, a systematic and comprehensive review highlighting the research themes, main findings, research methods, and future research directions of these studies remains scarce. Therefore, this study presents a mixed review comprising scientometric and systematic reviews to cover these research gaps. Results show that 68 studies have been published on this topic since the beginning of 2020 and that they cover three main themes: the impacts of COVID-19 on freight transport, mitigation strategies, and recovery during and after COVID-19. In addition, we describe the research methods, main findings, and possible research directions in each of them. Thus, the findings of our work present both theoretical and practical analyses of COVID-19-related research on freight transport and provide important future research directions in this domain.