Investigation of Opinions on the Acceptance of Autonomous Railway Vehicles in Slovakia

Abstract

The future of transportation is dramatically changing, and autonomous vehicles will play a key role in all means of transportation. In response to this challenge, the Drive2TheFuture project was developed. This project addresses the future of transportation and implementation of autonomous vehicles in road, maritime, air and rail transport. The authors of this article focus on railway transportation, since railway system are very important factors underpinning the robust economy of a country and the autonomous transport is the most realistic in the railway transport. Transporting people and goods by the train is one of the cheapest, quickest, and, also cheapest methods. The paper assesses the opinions on the acceptance of autonomous vehicles in railway transport in Slovakia. The aim is to obtain new knowledge about this issue and also determine the current state of preferences of the people in Slovak Republic regarding to use new modernized form of railway transport (with autonomous vehicle). To fulfil this goal methods of obtaining and gathering information were used, such as the method of document analysis (theoretical knowledge), the method of interpretation and the questionnaire technique. Furthermore, information processing methods were used, such as the method of quantitative evaluation, methods of statistical and analytical information processing and the method of databases. For the problem solving were used method of induction, deduction, synthesis, abstraction, and modelling. The article is divided into 6 section. In the Introduction is the basic context described. Objective and Methodology stated the aim and methods which will be used for fulfilling the goal. The current state of dealing with the issue described in detail the development of railway transportation and the problem of acceptation of autonomous vehicle. Two sections deal with findings, evaluation, and discussion. In conclusion are summarize facts and opinions of authors. List of literature is part of this article.