Andrei Bezruchonak

Over 50 billion US dollars had been invested into autonomous vehicles (AV) technology in 2013-2017. Driverless cars of the level 4 and 5 are forecasted to be in mass production after 2028 and the annual direct and indirect social and economic input of the AV technology is estimated to be over US $1.8-2.8 trillion in 2030. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the geographic structure of AV startup ecosystem, which is considered as one of the most significant disruptive and game-changing innovations of the nearest decades. The geographic analysis was carried out for 265 AV tech companies and startups, working on solutions to the following problem areas: services, infrastructure, in-car assistance and intelligence, safety, security, autonomy, sensors, materials and manufacturing. The key findings outline that the USA is the leader on the innovative AV market ecosystem (accounting for 57% of all startups) with the highest concentration near San Francisco Bay Area Core (more than 27% of all startups), followed up with a significant gap by Israel, India, UK and Canada. The main factors that define the level of readiness for autonomous vehicles, and, thus, the geography of diffusion of AVs innovation are regulatory and legislative environment, level of transportation and communication infrastructure development and public perception.

Transportation, representing 6% of GDP, plays vital role in social and economic development of the Republic of Belarus. The purpose of this article is to present the geographic analysis of current spatial structure of the road transportation in Belarus in 2000-2014. The choice of transport mode for the article was influenced by several factors, such as historic development, network coverage, transformational changes in productivity, rapid increase in car ownership numbers, emergence of logistic centers and intelligent transportation systems. The article reviews the range of topics, including morphology of the major roads network, logistic centers spatial distribution and regional features of passenger and cargo productivity, discusses current transformational changes within the road transportation sector in Belarus. The key findings indicate that current changes in spatial structure of the road transportation in Belarus have uneven nature, shaped by social, economic, political and geopolitical external and internal factors and are a subject of interest for both transportation researchers and practitioners.