ABSTRACT
All transportation domains exhibit the properties of complex systems and can benefit from the application of systems thinking approaches. These applications relate to both the physical design of transport systems and higher level regulatory and policy design. This chapter provides some suggested directions for future research applications that would benefit from adopting similar approaches to those described in this book. It demonstrates that the approach was beneficial in its application to rail level crossings, but there are myriad opportunities to conduct similar applications to solve other issues facing complex systems, both in transportation and beyond. An important emerging challenge for human factors is the introduction of highly autonomous vehicles into road networks. This could potentially represent a step-change in the operation of the road transport system, with considerable anticipated benefits for road safety such as reduced crashes due to the prevention or improved tolerance of 'human error'.
