Deployment of Autonomous Trains in Rail Transportation: Addressing the Needs for Higher Education and Leadership

Nowadays, there are fully Autonomous Trains (ATs) that have been deployed for passenger and freight transportation. Automation is viewed as an effective alternative for addressing the issues surrounding rail transportation, including safety issues, increasing demand, human errors, excessive waiting time of passengers, and passenger comfort. ATs allow decreasing the total operational costs due to reduced train crew size and optimized operations. Furthermore, reliability of automated rail services is much higher when comparing to conventional rail services, as ATs can effectively respond to potential disruptions during the train journey. Nevertheless, there exist a number of challenges associated with the AT deployment, which include design challenges, operational challenges, technology-related challenges, and human aspect-related challenges. User perception may slow down the AT development and deployment, as many people still have doubts regarding the AT performance during emergency scenarios. Furthermore, the employment issues due to layoffs of train drivers and other employees after the AT deployment are considered as a significant barrier as well. Effective higher education and leadership programs are anticipated to overcome some of the challenges in the AT development and deployment. This study performs a comprehensive review of the existing initiatives for higher education and leadership that have been organized by different countries over the past years, aiming to determine whether sufficient efforts were dedicated towards the AT deployment. The outcomes from this research are expected to identify the key areas where more efforts should be concentrated to ensure successful AT development and deployment via efficient educational and leadership programs.