Some aspects of modern automobile transport development

Abstract

The paper treats modern automobile transport development tendencies. In this regard, the main focus is on safety and ecology. Road accidents (hereinafter referred to as RA) are one of the main causes of death in the world, and every year they claim over 1.35 million lives, lead to injuries of up to 50 million people, and are ranked eighth among the main causes of death for all age groups. The economic losses caused by RAs in some countries reach 5% of the gross domestic product, in the Russian Federation this share is around 2%. The transport sector produces 18% of all global anthropogenic emissions and 23% of greenhouse gas emissions related to the energy industry. 3 million people die annually due to air pollution. A part of the listed problems can be solved by means of increasing vehicles’ autonomy and by creating driverless vehicles, the advantages of which are evident: safety - minimization of RAs which mostly occur due to human error; environmental friendliness - quantity optimization of the vehicle fleet, road traffic organization (optimal selecting route and driving modes) and decrease of fuel consumption (selecting driving modes); economic efficiency - decrease of costs for insurance and rapid-response (emergency) medicine in case of RA, decrease of cargo and people transportation costs by means of economizing driver’s salary and economizing fuel.