Change and future of engineering education in the field of transport, analyzed by the state of research in freight rail automation

Abstract

Transportation systems are confronted with a variety of social, economic, ecological and technological challenges. Rail-bound freight transport provides low-emission transport capacities. However, a majority of rail-bound freight transport still relies on inefficient manual processing and lacks digitization, especially when it comes to shunting and train composition. In order to solve the engineering task of smart shunting automation, inter-disciplinary knowledge is required. This includes electrical and control engineering, radio communication, localization, smart infrastructure design as well as embedded system programming. The arising heterogeneity needs to also be reflected in modern engineering education. Therefore, this contribution aims at providing a structured overview of all involved and related education disciplines in designing and implementing Intelligent Transportation Systems and how they need to be considered in research oriented education. Furthermore, the shifted requirements for engineering students in the light of more complex and interdependent systems are outlined. Based on this, several tools and teaching approaches to compensate the shifted requirements are presented. Finally, the approach is illustrated by a current teaching example in the engineering education in the field of smart shunting,