Transportation is a set of processes that lead to the targeted movement of people, objects, energy, and information in space and time. It is essentially a phenomenon of interaction between a living being and a technical artifact, and between human society and technological infrastructure, extending the dimension of human existence in space-time.
Transportation, as an independent technical scientific field, develops in collaboration with other fields, especially those developed at other faculties of the Czech Technical University in the areas of transportation route and vehicle technology, telecommunication systems and devices, and the technical-economic aspects of operating and maintaining transportation routes and vehicles. The fundamental methodology of transportation as a distinct engineering field is a systemic approach to the relationships between transportation routes, vehicles, and interconnected operational and logistical systems. The most significant factor that elevates the field of transportation and communications from interdisciplinary disciplines to independent master's and doctoral studies is the role arising from the application of transportation engineering informatics and its use in production economic behavior models and its application in creating efficiently functioning transportation systems in territories in connection with economic, ecological, and cultural human activities.
It is mainly economists who can correctly identify the importance of transportation and communications as a system that significantly contributes to the viability and perspective of the economy of regions and larger territorial units. In ecology, the identification of the impact of transportation as a significant civilizational factor on the environment is sufficiently evident.
The establishment of the Faculty of Transportation expressed the leadership of the Czech Technical University in Prague's will not to lag behind leading world universities and to reflect in its scientific and pedagogical goals not only the development of technologies and techniques but also the development of fields that, with their engineering methods, extend over extensive areas of human activity and their systemic organization in terms of time and space. The current process of globalization of world telecommunications and transportation systems necessarily requires such approaches; in practical applications, this is manifested, for example, in the improvement of railway timetables or in the systemic construction of combined modes of transportation with regard to environmental impacts.
The Faculty of Transportation is one of the eight faculties of the Czech Technical University in Prague. Today's CTU was founded on January 18, 1707, by Emperor Joseph I at the initiative of the recognized expert in fortification works, Christian Joseph Willenberg, who was appointed professor according to the decree of the provincial estates dated November 9, 1717. Teaching at this first public engineering school in Central Europe began in January 1718. The school was named the "Estates Engineering School in Prague." It was not until 30 years after the establishment of this Prague school that the later famous and still existing Parisian school "École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées" was founded.
Initially, the Estates Engineering School in Prague had a narrow military and fortification focus; it changed to a civil engineering school during the tenure of its second professor, Jan Ferdinand Schor, a painter and architect, and especially during the tenure of the school's third professor, František Antonín Leonard Herget, a surveying and water management expert.
In 1803, the emperor approved the proposal to transform the Estates Engineering School into a polytechnic, which was brought to life by František Josef Gerstner, an astronomer and professor of mathematics and mechanics, following the model of the Paris Polytechnic. The Prague Polytechnic remained part of the Prague University until 1815, when it became independent. The Polytechnic's headquarters were on Husova Street in the Old Town. Significant personalities of the Polytechnic included, besides František Josef Gerstner, the creator of the horse-drawn railway project from České Budějovice to Linz, and Christian Doppler, a professor of mathematics and practical geometry.
Another milestone in the school's development was the year 1863, when the then-approved first Statute became the basis for the new organization of pedagogical work and the management of the Polytechnic as a university headed by an elected rector and with four fields:
Czech was an equal teaching language with German, but disputes between the German and Czech parts of the teaching staff led to the division into Czech and German institutes in 1869. A new building was constructed for the Czech institute on Karlovo náměstí in the New Town (designed by Professor Architect Ullmann). From 1878, two state exams were introduced, and from 1901, the school was granted the right to award the title of Doctor of Technical Sciences.
The name Czech Technical University in Prague has been used since 1920; at that time, it comprised seven universities:
During the Nazi occupation, the university was closed, and after liberation in 1945, it was reopened. In 1952, the Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of Chemical Technology left the CTU.
The Faculty of Transportation was established in September 1952, originally as part of the CTU, and the independent Railway College began its activities in the 1953/54 school year in Prague - Karlín with four faculties:
It had 1,200 students and 20 departments at that time. From the 1960/61 school year, it was relocated to Žilina and renamed the University of Transport and Communications. After the division of Czechoslovakia, the Faculty of Transportation was established as part of the CTU in Prague, starting its teaching activities in the 1993/94 school year.
The Faculty of Transportation received accreditation for engineering studies by the decision of the Accreditation Commission of the Czech Republic on May 5, 1993. The first Statute of the Faculty of Transportation was approved by the Academic Senate of the CTU on June 9, 1993. In the 1993/94 school year, the first 200 students of full-time engineering studies began studying at the faculty in Prague, and in the 1995/96 school year, bachelor's students in Děčín were added. In 1998, 70 first graduates of engineering studies and 15 first graduates of bachelor's studies were ceremoniously promoted. In March 2000, the Institute for Bachelor's Studies was established at the Faculty of Transportation in Děčín. In the academic year 2003-2004, studies began in a new, so-called structured form of study. The aim of this new form is to respond to European trends in education and ensure higher permeability of studies for students and teachers.