Telematics: A Distinctive Discipline

The thesis of this paper is the identification of Telematics as a distinctive discipline, a discipline that shares a lot with Computer Science and with Electrical Engineering, but whose body of knowledge deserves being identified as such, since it is today already big enough and is expected to grow even more in future. We begin with the historical background of Telematics, continuing with a description of the years in which the convergence of Telecommunicacions and Informatics (or Computers and Communications) cristalized together with other elements to consolidate Telematics as a distinctive discipline. We then review the current international acceptance of the term Telematics to denote this discipline. In the next section, we perform a definition of what are the scientific and technical building blocks of Telematics, drawing a reasonably clear border with neighbouring disciplines. We end the article pointing out some of the paths through which Telematics may continue to evolve, and possibly subdivide in other new scientific disciplines.