TRANSACTIONS ON
VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY
A PUBLICATION OF THE IEEE VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY

It is our editorial goal to complete the first review cycle within three months after you receive the paper. Excessively long review cycles are a problem: the author is obviously unhappy and is discouraged (and my discourage others) from submitting to the Transactions in the future. Long delays also result in our published papers being less timely and ultimately of less interest to our readers. Thus, it is important to keep the review cycle as short as possible.

To ensure a short review cycle, the following plan is recommended.

• Carefully select referees and request reviews within one (1) week

• The reviewer should agree to decline to review the paper within two (2) weeks. If you do not hear form the reviewer after one (1) week, an automatic email is sent to the reviewer.

• The review should be completed within five to six weeks. Automatic reminders are sent out at 3, 45, and 60 days.

• Occasionally you will encounter a referee who still will not respond. In this case, a personal phone call followed by a personalized email may help. For example, you can write the following: "In fairness to the author, I must soon make a publication decision and I would like your review in order to make that decision. That will also save me from going out for further reviews, which will delay the review process. Please send in your review by <date>."

Note that the referees who do not respond within a two-month period (and who may consequently force you to go for an additional review) may result in an additional two months being added to the review process. Thus, it is particularly important that you choose your initial set of referees carefully and that you keep up with the review process.

When the reviewer completes the review, the tool thanks the reviewer. Also, later in the process, each reviewer is automatically notified of the decision and is given a copy of all reviewer score sheets (the parts intended for the authors).