№ 3(46) 2014 (июль-сентябрь) Безопасность движения и автомобильные перевозки БЕЗОПАСНОСТЬ ДВИЖЕНИЯ И АВТОМОБИЛЬНЫЕ ПЕРЕВОЗКИ П. <...> Уже много научных работ показали, что это действительно так. <...> Основная функция перевозок - перемещение масс по транспортной сети, которая является ориентированным графом. <...> Эти функции затрагивают экологию, безопасность и другие сферы. <...> Самым важным является объект P, который осуществляет целевые функции. <...> INTRODUCTION When considering the role of transportation in the society and whether there is a comprehensive science named as "transportation", we can quote Mark Twain, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it," (ref. 1) which has, to some extent, an analogy with transportation. <...> Everybody knows that transportation exists and that it is a skeleton for development of the society and it is still not clearly defined and not even anchored as a specific scientific field. <...> The system of sciences can be divided into formal sciences, which include e. g. logic or philosophy and real-world sciences, which are natural, social and humanities, and furthermore to theoretical and practical sciences. <...> Transport should belong to application sciences, but this does not corresponds to its interdisciplinarity - the design of means of transportation requires to knowledge of mechanical engineering, transportation networks are developed according to building standards and transportation networks are managed by methods based on theories derived from cybernetics. <...> A branch is in general a part of objective reality created through practical experience. <...> It can be concluded that the branch of transportation is usually regarded as a set of processes ensuring transfer of entities in time and space. <...> The branch of transportation should be considered in a broader sense, as an essential part of life of society, as points this contribution, which argues with the idea of considering transportation branch discipline only from the point of view of its transferring functions. <...> Philosophically it means that there Мир транспорта и технологических машин Мир транспорта и технологических машин 2014 is a set of characteristics that defines the entity/object so that it is distinguishable from branches. <...> Vlček does not identify himself with above mentioned characteristics distinguishing <...>