Digitalized and autonomous transport – challenges and chances

Abstract

Purpose: European Logistics is characterized by a matured infrastructure. Nevertheless, industry has to catch up in terms of digitalized and autonomous transport. The awareness-rising of industrial companies in this area is still limited. Therefore, the paper includes a research in order to find out the reasons for hesitations of manufacturing industry. Methodology: For this purpose, an overview of digitalized and autonomous transport based on a literature research is given and reflected at the beginning. The focus is on new concepts to demonstrate the potentials to handle actual challenges. Subsequently, an empirical study is conducted, on which 138 manufacturing companies have participated. Findings: The empirical study shows that governmental institutions have to work out a legal framework. Manufacturing companies are still sceptical of trends in digitalized and autonomous transport logistics. Logistics Managers still see barriers in the fields of security and infrastructure. Actually they see low chances in the next years. Originality: Current transport logistics trend analyses usually do not challenge the topic of digitalized and autonomous transport from the users point of view. Manufacturing companies have to face a variety of challenges in the field of transport. By conducting the research, the current state and hesitations of management can be outlined.