Stefan Heinbockel

Engineering is Fun!

Since my childhood, I am fascinated by all kinds of transportation systems. I like to explore how they work, on this planet and on others.

Internet and Railroad

The invention of the railroad has changed the world. For the first time, both people and goods could be transported fast, long-distance and in great numbers. Almost 200 years later, the Internet started a similar revolution. Today information travels the globe with lightning speed. The first revolution was powered by steel and steam. The second revolution was driven by cables and electrons. But both of them followed similar patterns. This article analyses the similarities of both systems and what we can learn from them.

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An Interplanetary Transportation System

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Autonomous Cars – What Impact Will They Have?

The latest hype in the car industry is the autonomous car. It seems like the dream of a vehicle that can drive on its own is within our grasp and that is is only a matter of a few years until we can buy one. This will free us of driving ourselves and will enable driverless taxis, make private cars superfluous and replace all local transport. At least this is what we can read these days in the newspapers. But is it true? This article tries to examine what impact the introduction of self-driving vehicles might have on our streets, our cities and our lives.

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VIP Transport – How Celebrities Arrive Safely

Whenever a celebrity or a person of public interest dies in an accident, it gets a lot of attention in the media. Whenever I recollect all the accidents of VIPs I can remember, I think I can see a pattern. The vast majority of them died in car accidents, like James Dean, Lady Di, Falco or Grace Kelly. Some others died in plane crashes, like Buddy Holly or Juri Gagarin. But I can’t remember any VIP who died in a train crash or in a sinking ship. Does this perceived pattern match with official statistics, and does it suggest anything to increase the survival rate of celebrities – and normal people, too?

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The Space Elevator

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A Transportation System on Mars

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Beyond Computer Networks: Layers and the Transportation System

Computer networks and telecommunication systems are often described by a conceptual model called layers. Every layer uses the services of the lower layers to fulfil its own services. This abstraction allows to discuss each layer separately, evolving and changing them without breaking the functionality of the upper layers. It also allows to create heterogenous networks, where each node might be connected using different physical connections. The same conceptual model can be used to describe the transportation system. It also forms a heterogenous network of many nodes all over the world. Instead of information, it transports humans and physical goods. This article introduces the use of the layering analogy to the transportation system, analyzes its structure and identifies the different roles that comprise this network.

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The Railway System from a Software Architecture Perpective

The architecture of a computer system is defined by its components and their interactions. There are interfaces, definitions and roles. This article has a look on another system. It is more than 200 years old. It has interfaces, services and roles, just like a computer system. And it is still evolving. It is the Railway System. We will examine the parallels between both worlds. We will see which components make up Railway System has and how the interfaces between them look like. Then we have a look at the evolution of this system, from which we can take some lessons for the evolution of computer systems.

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