Technical vision systems are sources of information about an obstacle on the track in the case of driverless train control. Based on the information received, the traffic control system decides to turn on the braking mode to prevent a colliosni with an obstacle. In accordance with international and domestic expertise and standard ratings, it is necessary to ensure the probability of a dangerous failure, in this case, the probability of hitting an obstacle, not more than 10-8 with a confidence probability of 0,95 according to SIL-4 ([Russian state standard] GOST-R61508). Considering the presence of an error in measuring the distance to an obstacle by the technical vision system and an error in calculating the stopping distance, it is required to determine the coordinate of the braking start point when an object is detected on the track in such a way as to ensure that the train stops before the obstacle with a probability determined in accordance with SIL-4.

A feature of the problem being solved for estimating the errors in measuring the distance to an obstacle and calculating the stopping distance implies the need to determine the estimates of their maximum values and to develop an algorithm for using these estimates in such a way that the collision probability does not exceed the normalised value.

A technique is described for determining the maximum value of the error in measuring the distance to the obstacle, the probability of exceeding which is quite small (from 10-2 to 10-6). A proposed algorithm for multiple measurements of the distance to an obstacle allows choosing the minimum measurement result for deciding on the start of braking, which ensures meeting standard indicator of a probability of a train colliding with an obstacle according to SIL-4. A method for estimating the error in calculating the stopping distance has been developed, which, together with the algorithm of multiple measurements by the technical vision system of the distance to the obstacle, provides the standard indicator according to SIL-4. The need for the second channel of technical vision due to the presence of curves along the route is shown. The necessity of using algorithms for multiple measurements to an obstacle through the second channel located outside the train is also substantiated. It is noted that the methods described in this article for choosing the maximum values of random errors in measurements and calculations, the values of which can be exceeded with a very low probability, can be used to solve various applied problems of traffic control in transportation processes.

Continuing the study, the purpose of which was to develop a new approach to determining the transport behaviour of residents of urban agglomerations, to outline the main ways of its development, a new description of transport behaviour is proposed based on various scientific disciplines and the theory of macrosystems.

This, according to the authors, will make contribution to laying the foundation for creation of a currently missing theory of transport behaviour.

A developed mathematical model of transport behaviour based on the provisions of academician Yu. S. Popkov’s theory of macrosystems, uses the entropy approach to determine the equilibrium state of the transport system. At the same time, the model identifies an initial list of parameters responsible for describing the «transport behaviour». The latter is considered as a collective phenomenon that creates a deterministic representation resulting from interaction of many stochastically acting elements (road users). A compiled preliminary scheme can be used to solve the problem of finding unknowns in the system of equations and inequalities within the model.

Currently, there is an intensive development of manned and unmanned submersibles due to development of offshore oil and gas fields, development of underwater archaeology and exploration activities in transit zones regarding seabed mineral extraction. The depth of immersion and the nature of the underwater technical works performed determine not only the design of the underwater vehicle, its power-to-weight ratio and technical equipment, but also impose high requirements on reliability, survivability, and habitability, if the underwater vehicle implies that the operator is on board inside a pressure hull. The main objectives of the study carried out by the authors were to achieve high reliability and survivability of the main elements of the propulsion-steering complex, which ensure movement of a human-occupied vehicle in the water column, its positioning and retention at a given point in the water area.

For this purpose, it was proceeded to development of an automated control system for the electric drive of the propulsive device of manned immersible. The proposed developments include a flowchart of the movement control system, circuitry engineering solutions using power semiconductor devices to maintain operability of the electric drive in extreme and emergency operating conditions, and movement control algorithms. Electromagnetic calculations of the active part of the electric machine were performed by the finite element method, considering the geometric features of the dental zone of the rotor and stator. The proposed mathematical apparatus served to calculate optimal control actions of the electric drive and to quantitatively assess the reduction in electrical losses once optimal control was applied. The calculation of the optimal control parameters was carried out using the maximum principle. The initial conditions for auxiliary functions are determined by the Newton‒ Raphson method. A comparison of various modes of operation of the electric drive was made regarding their influence on duration of the campaign, and other parameters.

The calculations did not consider the parameters and geometry of the propulsive device (the propeller) since the developers of electric propulsion systems for manned and unmanned underwater vehicles of various classes often deliberately reduce the efficiency of the propeller to increase speed of the electric motor shaft, resulting in a decrease in the dimensions and weight of the latter.

Recently, the issue of advisability of building dedicated highspeed railways (HSR) in Russia for transportation of passengers and goods has often been raised in the scientific and industry environment. The key risk of such large-scale investment projects is a significant or rather long payback period due to the lower population density in the areas of the proposed HSR compared to, for example, China. In addition, when planning such capitalintensive and resource-intensive investments, it is necessary to consider plans for development of other modes of transport, namely, express highways, air traffic, as direct competitors to speed and high-speed railways.

A way to increase the competitiveness of HSR may be to reduce capital costs during the construction. The creation of HSR, where multiple-unit trains powered by gas turbine engines (GTE) and using AC-AC electric drive, will allow to renounce investments in expensive design, construction, and subsequent maintenance of energy facilities, specialised HSR catenary, which will ensure reduction in the cost of HSR projects, in construction time, and accelerated payback of railways.

The article describes the advantages of operating gas turbine traction on speed and high-speed railway lines. The possible structure and layout of such trains are shown. The risks of operation of rolling stock powered by GTE are considered as well as the ways to neutralise them. The objective of the study was to identify the comparative advantages of multiple unit trains powered by GTE compared to high-speed electric trains. The study used methods of comparative analysis, content analysis of technical information, and ranking. It is concluded that introduction of GTE will reduce the investment and operating costs of speed and high-speed railways while maintaining the power and dynamic characteristics of trains.

Outsourcing services widespread in developed countries have been used in the economic market of the Republic of Azerbaijan in recent years mainly in the fields of accounting, human resources, marketing, information technology and logistics.

Our previous study on «Logistics in the transport complex of the Republic of Azerbaijan» based on 11 criteria for the development of logistics outsourcing concluded that the lack of mutual trust between companies and their desire to maintain own control in most areas is one of the reasons explaining poor development of logistics outsourcing.

The proposed article proposes for discussion new criteria developed by us, in addition to ones existing and described in the scientific literature, to assess the existing concerns of companies before concluding a mutual agreement in the field of outsourcing and to conduct internal and external evaluations of logistics outsourcing services.

Considering that the criteria described in the research papers do not fully cover the internal evaluation of logistics outsourcing services, an additional criterion of risk assessment was proposed by us. In addition to the criteria already known from the scientific sources, two other criteria were developed by us also for the external evaluation of logistics outsourcing services, those criteria reflect the capacity of logistics providers and tracking of vehicles in use.

The problem of unreliability and mistrust between companies and enterprises will be solved to some extent by making the optimal decisions through the new method discussed in this article.

The relevance of conducting a situational analysis of the cargo transportation market is based on its overall strategic importance in the context of economic development of the Russian Federation. Namely, being actively involved in both domestic and foreign economic activity, cargo transportation is a key one in the supply of goods, resources, food, and other cargo.

Such an analysis is of particular interest regarding the immediate pandemic and consequent period. It offers an opportunity to draw certain conclusions on change in quantitative indices (the total number of cargo transportation carried out decreased that somewhat complicated the situation of a number of business entities) as well as, to a certain extent, on adaptation of the tools of situational analysis to situations rather strongly influenced by unusual factors.

The subject of study described in the article is the process of conducting a situational analysis of the cargo transportation market to identify the main patterns for road, rail, and sea transportation. Besides, the data obtained through the analysis are the basis for making basic forecasts for the future state of the entire cargo transportation sector.

The study involved in its context methods of analysis and synthesis of economic and statistical sources of information; at the same time, the author relied also on several empirical research methods and a SWOT analysis.

The results of the current study are ambiguous: on the one hand, one can observe overall development of the industry from the position of changing the structure composition of the market of cargo transportation, as well as note its sustainability relative to other areas. At the same time, the analysis of the state of cargo transportation that took shape during the pandemics can be considered as dependent to great extent on further impact of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the entire economy. It is nevertheless important that the cargo transportation has shown high adaptation ability regarding tuning of the activity under the conditions of fast changes in external economic environment and market situation.

Development of new approaches to formation of analytics mechanisms for the purpose of pricing management of services is an important aspect of increasing the efficiency of transport management processes.

Research aimed at improving the tools for determining the optimal parameters of the ratio of quality and price of service for formation of a competitive and efficient tariff policy continues to remain relevant and in demand in modern market conditions. The objective of the study, presented in the article, is to analyse and evaluate the prospects for implementation of the areas to improve the apparatus for assessing the price elasticity of demand for railway passenger transport services as the transition to the use of non-linear parameters in terms of customer behaviour modelling functions, as well as introduction of the most effective algorithms from the set of modern global mathematical optimisation tools.

The research conclusions are based on the use of system analysis mechanisms, methods of economic and mathematical modelling and optimisation, as well as of non-parametric statistics tools.

The results based on the use of an array of data on the demand of passengers of branded trains include: a comparative assessment of quality of modelling the price elasticity of demand using 15 functions that are nonlinear in terms of parameters; the most promising tools of the search for unknown parameters for non-smooth nonlinear functions for modelling the behaviour of railway customers are identified based on a three-stage procedure for comparative analysis of the performance of more than 60 optimisation algorithms (including the calculation of minima and medians for the sums of squares of modelling errors, bootstrap analysis, Kruskal– Wallace and Mann–Whitney tests, as well as the calculation of a metric specially developed by the authors for assessing the degree of superiority of one algorithm over another within the framework of non-parametric analysis).

The findings seem able to be successfully used in relation to other modes of transport in solving similar problems of developing an effective toolkit for managing the prices of transport services.

Long-term traffic intensity is among core characteristics that determine main parameters while developing projects for construction of new highways. The long-term traffic intensity influences estimated speed, pavement design, total number of traffic lanes, width of traffic lanes and roadsides, longitudinal slope, radii of horizontal curve, transverse slope, radii of convex and concave curves regarding the longitudinal profile, width of median strip, layout of intersection or junction with other roads.

Existing methods for predicting traffic intensity for toll roads are also deterministic and cannot estimate the range of values for the listed indicators. In this regard, the objective of the study is to identify the features, advantages, and disadvantages of existing methods for assessing the long-term traffic intensity for toll roads.

The study considered both traditional, classical methods (extrapolation, historical analysis, approximation) and promising innovative approaches based on the theory of fuzzy logic and neural network modelling.

The article examines the state of transport services in the city of Khujand in the Republic of Tajikistan. Particular attention is paid to development of road public passenger routes.

In the framework of the analysis of prospects for development of public transport, the authors suggest a method of analysis of future needs for passenger transportation based on processing array of data on volumes of past passenger flows and construction of trendlines using several mathematical models, comprising relational model. Prognostic model has been verified by comparing analytical and actual data available for the year of the study. Calculated trends of the growth in demand for passenger transportation have also been confirmed by expert assessment.

The analysis resulted in forecasting growing demand on passenger transportation with public transport in the city of Khujand. The methods described are basic ones, and to better plan economic activity, more accurate forecasting tools are to be further used. However, convergence of the general trend towards accelerated increase in passenger transportation generated using different basic methods, allows building long-term strategy of development of the urban transport.

The importance of the train speed is considered relative to activity of railways, presenting a wide panorama of influence, on the one hand of speed on the process of transportation of goods and passengers, and, on the other hand, of rolling stock, infrastructure, and organisation of transportation on speed.

The objective of the article is to extend the ideas about the speed on railways with the help of analysis of Russian and international history of development and results of the study of the train speed.

Despite, it would seem, all the certainty of speed of movement, the history of its development testifies to a wide range of opinions and non-obviousness of estimates. The historical review contains opinion on the development of the problem and interaction between the speed and other parameters.

The interaction of train speed with all components of the transportation process is described by various dependencies. Therefore, the economic efficiency from increasing speed of trains can be obtained only with a system approach.

Analysis of modern research shows the potential capacity to increase the speed. The results of the author’s research reveal the in-depth possibilities and expediency of increasing train speed.

The article, consisting of two parts, studies historical and economic aspects, physical infrastructure and technological basis of emergence, formation, and evolutionary development of inland transport infrastructure. In contrast to water and air transport, land transport, due to its linkage to a certain territory, developed in a very restrained and nonlinear manner. Its infrastructure, represented by the simplest paths and roads, of course, played a certain economic role, but until 18th–19th centuries was not considered as the basis for regular advance and exchange of goods. In different parts of the world, the infrastructure of land transport developed differently which was largely due to the prevailing socio-economic institutions. For many centuries, the technical condition of the inland transport infrastructure and its economic importance have not undergone any significant changes. Therefore, the end of the medieval era and a significant breakthrough in development of land transport are interdependent processes. The emergence of an era of economic growth, including development of international trade and an increase in social welfare, would not have been possible without a wellfunctioning land transport system. Nevertheless, land transport until the beginning of 19th century was not associated with a reliable, fast, and regular medium of exchange and travel. Only with the advent of railways the situation changed radically. Paved roads were also developing. From this moment land transport and its infrastructure has become the basis of the dynamic economic activity of society.

P. Verkhovsky, an experienced railway manager, wrote a book entitled «Railway Confusion» and devoted to comprehensive solution of a wide range of topical problems of organisation of the activity of railway companies. In 1910, he presented the book in a special report to the 8th Department pf the Imperial Russian Technical Society. The report was positioned as a focused review of the contents of the oeuvre. Extracts from the first part of the report published below are dedicated to the detailed and argued reflexions of the author on the requirements for the educational background of engineers and railway CEOs. If we use modern terminology, then the speaker highlighted career trajectory more suitable to finally occupy the position of managers, development of professional and soft skills, leadership and team building, the role of railway high educational institutions, mainstream issues to be included into curricula. Then the speaker refers to almost comprehensive set of issues referring to staff management and social policy towards the employees. The issues covered included organisation of railway education, high and higher school activities, social care regarding railwaymen’s children, health and many other aspects.

The final part will be published in one of the next issues of our journal.