Human vs. Automation - Who Drives The Future?

Abstract

The sprint in technology during the last hundred years has brought us to new questions in almost all subjects of science, including transport. This brought question outstanding the greatest challenge since switch from horses to cars andmotorcycles – autonomous road transport. The answer whether or not we shall follow this path and put driving aside to the position of enjoyment for wealthy, similarly as we did with horses, is not clear. Transport sector is highly interdisciplinary and affects the whole population, in minor cases only indirectly. This makes it sensitive to political decisions, investments, marketing and media. Therefore, it is hard to provide strictly single-subject related scientific answer, because due to the nature of transportation there is simply none. The following paper picks up aspects of several disciplines influencing design of autonomous vehicles and systems including decision making process in transport and trying to bring a focus to the path to follow in automation features in complex socio-technological system of road transport.