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The transport sector plays an important role in society at large. This article aimed to provide a state-of-the-art literature review in the area of sustainable transport. Data for the analysis were collected from the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2022. A total of 1238 bibliometric records of publications were collected. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken in the article. The analysis results showed five main research areas: 1—sustainable urban/public transport and mobility; 2—transport emissions and fuels; 3—sustainable supply chain/logistics management models; 4—performance and metrics in sustainable transport; and 5—future and policy. The limitations of the research carried out, which mainly concern the methodological section, should also be borne in mind. These include the selected publication base and search criteria, such as the year or language of publication.

Economic production and, more generally, most global societies, are overwhelmingly dependant upon depleting supplies of fossil fuels. There is considerable concern amongst resource scientists, if not most economists, as to whether market signals or cost benefit analysis based on today’s prices are sufficient to guide our decisions about our energy future. These suspicions and concerns were escalated during the oil price increase from 2005 – 2008 and the subsequent but probably related market collapse of 2008. We believe that Energy Return On Investment (EROI) analysis provides a useful approach for examining disadvantages and advantages of different fuels and also offers the possibility to look into the future in ways that markets seem unable to do. The goal of this paper is to review the application of EROI theory to both natural and economic realms, and to assess preliminarily the minimum EROI that a society must attain from its energy exploitation to support continued economic activity and social function. In doing so we calculate herein a basic first attempt at the minimum EROI for current society and some of the consequences when that minimum is approached. The theory of the minimum EROI discussed here, which describes the somewhat obvious but nonetheless important idea that for any being or system to survive or grow it must gain substantially more energy than it uses in obtaining that energy, may be especially important. Thus any particular being or system must abide by a “Law of Minimum EROI”, which we calculate for both oil and corn-based ethanol as about 3:1 at the mine-mouth/farm-gate. Since most biofuels have EROI’s of less than 3:1 they must be subsidized by fossil fuels to be useful.