Environmental contamination from vehicle emissions and from traffic congestion is a widespread issue that affects a large portion of the global population. The amount of pollution from these sources continues to rise and, especially when combined with the acceleration of urbanization (including both global and regional impacts), means that it is imperative to perform deep investigations into the resulting environmental issues. However, large advancements in sensing technology, communication, and big data, the volume and quality of traffic data have increased in recent years. These advances create unprecedented opportunities to go beyond the limitations of existing models, theories, and patterns to capture new insights into the environmental effects of vehicle emissions and traffic congestion.

In particular, there has been a great interest in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) formed by connected vehicles in the areas of wireless communications and Intelligent Transportation Systems. Vehicular networks, which have been envisioned as an effective measure to resolve traffic problems, hold great promise for improving the impact of vehicular pollution on the environment. Meanwhile, the large sets of information retrieved from vehicular networks have offered great opportunities for environment-related assessment and improvement from a range of different data perspectives.

Therefore, this Special Issue calls for novel contributions on cutting-edge research using big data technology and applications to cope with environmental issues and challenges, and will accept both original research articles and review articles on the current state-of-the-art. Particular attention will be given to the following theme areas; however, it should be stressed that a broad range of submissions are encouraged.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Data analytics in vehicles and transportation
• Data analytics in emissions, noise, and environment
• Big data aided modeling, simulation, verification
• Joint analysis of transportation and environment
• Impact of vehicular network on environment
• Innovation in urban environment research