Unmanned future of domestic transport was discussed at the RUSSIA EXPO

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The plenary session "Technological Leadership: Transport Mobility. Prospects for the Digitalization of the Transport Complex and Development of Unmanned Technologies" was held at the RUSSIA EXPO. The event was part of the thematic National Priorities Day "Transport Mobility", which, in turn, is held at the Exposition as part of the Technology Leadership Week.

The session brought together representatives of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation and business leaders. The main issues for discussion were the impact of digitalization on the efficiency and safety of transport in the country, the prospects of introducing unmanned traffic into the daily functioning of the industry, and the creation of new domestic IT solutions to modernize freight and passenger transportation.

Dmitry Bakanov, Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, cited some of the most significant results achieved to date. One of the most noticeable consequences of the digitalization of the industry for Russian citizens is the nearly complete transfer of ticket sales for almost all types of public transport to a remote digital format. At the same time, it has recently become possible to issue not only regular tickets, but also discounted travel documents for subsidized transportation in this way.

The possibilities of unmanned traffic have already been realized in a wide variety of modes of transport — from urban land transport to aviation and maritime transport. "Not long ago, just over a year back, we launched the movement of unmanned cargo transport — it was a special challenge, as foreign vendors refused to work with us. But we applied domestic KAMAZ vehicles — we started with three vehicles, now there are already 15 of them working. As for aviation drones, about 100 thousand UAVs are already in the register of Rosaviatsia (Federal Agency for Air Transport), 175 thousand flight assignments were given to them in 2023. On the railroad, MCC and "Lastochka" will start to test unmanned traffic as early as this summer, and from 2026 we plan to remove the driver from the cabin. Last December at our "Digital Transportation" forum Andrei Belousov gave a start to autonomous ship navigation between the ports of Baltiysk and Ust-Luga in Kaliningrad and Leningrad regions," said Dmitry Bakanov.

Equally important is the harmonization of legislative standards to changing conditions. As an example, the Deputy Minister cited the dramatic change in the principles of taxi transportation over the past decade. "Last year Law No. 580-FZ was adopted, thanks to which the ‘Taxi’ State Information System appeared — it helps to obtain, renew or cancel licenses, as well as to check the legality of transportation. It is already used by two million citizens every month. All this leads to the "whitewashing" of the market, and to an increase in the level of transportation safety," said Dmitry Bakanov.

Victoria Erkenova, Deputy Chairman of the Board for Intelligent Transport Systems and Digitalization of the State Company Avtodor, spoke about the experience of implementing a modern traffic management system on the company's highways. Its work has already reduced the number of road accidents by about 50%.

"The key value of the system is the predictive detection of traffic events that can have a negative impact on traffic conditions. It is based on video cameras that monitor the situation in real time using machine vision and detect, for example, instances of vehicles stopping in the wrong place, reversing, and people or animals entering the roadway. In addition, the system receives data from weather stations that monitor more than 10 parameters, including air and road temperature. There are also traffic detectors that identify the type of vehicles on the road, their speed and position in the lane. In case there is a potential danger, emergency commissioners are initiated to come to the place, and warning information is displayed on the scoreboard along the highway," explained Victoria Erkenova.

One of the largest developers of equipment and IT-solutions for such traffic control systems is Telematica Concern. Its General Director Alexei Nashchekin spoke about the way innovations help to increase the level of safety on the roads every year.

In turn, Sitronics Group President Nikolay Pozhidaev reported on the high degree of readiness of the conceptual solution that will allow launching an artificial intelligence system in water transport management. And intelligent control systems are already in operation in sea ports - Boris Sopelnik, General Director of Delotech LLC, told about it.

Dmitry Kruglov, Technical Director of Yandex Unmanned Technologies, dispelled fears that unmanned transport will leave many residents of the country unemployed. He noted that the transportation industry, including freight transportation, is experiencing a shortage of personnel, and unmanned technologies are still working to fill this deficit. But even when part of the jobs of professional drivers will be replaced, it will be compensated by the creation of similar jobs for people with driving skills, but already as traffic controllers of unmanned vehicles.

Among the long-term positive consequences of the development of this sphere Dmitry Kruglov also named the solution of the traffic issue — after the number of automatically controlled cars on the highways exceeds a certain critical level, there will be much less traffic jams.

Kirill Kolesnikov, General Director of Sinara Algorithm LLC, highlighted the introduction of artificial intelligence in railway transport. As a vivid example, he cited the experience of the company's concession in Taganrog, which undertook the digitalization of the local tram fleet. The use of unmanned technologies helped relieve the park's employees of much of their night work — streetcars now move around the depot territory for maintenance and washing in an automated mode, without drivers.