Autonomous driving on freely accessible railway tracks

Autonomous vehicles are a rapidly emerging technology that will radically transform the face of public and
personal transportation in the near future. The project autoBAHN2020 aims to promote this trend on local
railway tracks to make them more attractive for passengers again. Trains, by concept, come with major
shortcomings such as lack of privacy and inflexibility due to long cycle times and continuous stops. This
problem could partly be overcome by splitting them up into multiple smaller trainlets while significantly
reducing the cycle time and the number of passengers per trainlet. However, a train driver for each small trainlet
would not be economically feasible, therefore a fully autonomous operation is required. Since many railway
tracks are freely accessible, a sensor system for reliable obstacle detection is required. This technical paper will
present the current state of the project autoBAHN2020 and its actual topics of research.