Large Language Models in Transportation: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis of Emerging Trends, Challenges, and Future Research

This paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of Large Language Models (LLMs) in transportation, exploring emerging trends, challenges and future research. Understanding their evolution and impact in transportation research is essential. The study used Scopus as the primary data source, applying Bibliometrix, VOSviewer, and Python for performance analysis and science mapping. This study analyzes 161 peer-reviewed articles and reveals a 25.74% annual growth in scholarly output. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles</i> emerge as the most influential journals by publication volume and impact on LLM research. The findings highlight global disparities in research contributions, with China and the United States dominating by publication volume, followed by Germany and Canada, while developing regions exhibit lower scientific productivity. In addition, the study provides qualitative insights by reviewing recent LLM applications in transportation, examining their key contributions, methodological approaches, inherent limitations, and domain-specific challenges. Key research themes focus on autonomous mobility, traffic optimization, and sustainable transportation networks. Despite significant progress, several challenges remain, including decision-making uncertainties, computational scalability, and high energy consumption. Overcoming these challenges requires greater transparency through causal learning, enhanced reasoning via hybrid AI models, and inclusive frameworks that address algorithmic bias and ensure equitable adoption.