With autonomous vehicles all over the news, both excitement and concern are building about the future of trucking. Until this point, state policymakers have been working on legislation without much input from the federal government, but recently the DOT decided that they should start getting involved.
Critics of the Department of Transportation often claim that the DOT feels the need to regulate aspects of the industry about which they don’t have a proper understanding. The hugely controversial hours of service ruling, the proposed ruling on speed limiters, and CSA BASIC scores are all frequently pointed to as prime examples of the DOT putting themselves in the middle things they don’t fully understand.
That may be why the DOT is forming an advisory committee to help guide their policies on autonomous driving technology.
In a briefing published by the DOT last month, DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that he would be forming an Advisory Committee on Automation in Transportation.
“This committee will help determine how, when, and where automated technology will transform the way we move,” said Foxx.
When it finally forms, the committee will have some catching up to do and lots of huge decisions to make about subjects ranging from autonomous driving, to unmanned aircraft systems, to “enhanced freight movement technologies” and other “advanced technology deployment in surface transportation environments.”
Interestingly, Foxx says that the committee members will come from outside the government. It will be made up of 15 individuals who are “innovative and thoughtful leaders” who have experience with areas like intelligent transportation systems (ITS), robotics, enhanced freight movement, air traffic control next generation technology, and advanced transportation technology deployment.
But while the DOT is looking to experts for advice on how things should work, there are some who are concerned that the Department will once again forget to have a proper understanding of how things already do work.
If you are interested in being a part of the advisory committee or nominating someone else to make sure that truckers’ voices are heard, you can send materials to automation@dot.gov. To learn more about the advisory committee, you can read the original DOT briefing here.
Let’s see. A committee made up of people that know nothing about the guts of trucking. They also don’t realize how damaging robotic trucks are going to be to the economy. I the short term it looks great. The sells pitch of replacing drivers with robots. Millions upon millions of jobs nationwide will be lost. All truck stops will close due to the loss of business. The oil industry will encounter the same problem states will suffer from loss of revenue. Weight stations will close. Brokerage companies will close. Trucking companies will close due to the loss in shipping rates. People are going to want big discounts on shipping because the truck can drive it’s self.
Too ,too much depends on trucking as a means of support. Autonomous/robotic trucks will ruin the economy . Wiping out the middle class. Leaving people with out a penny to by the goods and products autonomous/robotic trucks are going to be bringing.
Have you ever heard of neo luddites? Imagine hypothetically if we found a way to create a car that fixes itself and wouldn’t need mechanic work. Would the mechanic industry protest because it would impact their jobs? Or another example is would we intentionally destroy a bunch of perfectly fine bridges and roads just to make construction jobs, even if there’s nothing wrong with the bridges and roads? It is not practicle to argue against technology for jobs. People just have to find other jobs to meet the demands of a changing economy. That being said I think an argument can be made for the saftey of autonomous which are susceptible to computer glitches hacking and other things.
When there’s not jobs. Then what. Infastructure is job for people to bring money into the economy. without that. Not country can survive. Rather America will become a first world Africa. Which it’s close to now
Man you are paranoid it will not happen relax wait till the accidents begin the lawsuits maybe a handful
Definitely paranoid. Didn’t you see the Otto truck? A driver still had to get it from the shipper to the highway, and thb from the highway to the consignee. Lets not forget that trailer doors don’t open themselves, and that empty seat isn’t going to unbuckle itself and get out to put fuel in the tanks either.
Lets also not forget that computers crash. So what happens if a computer that’s driving a vehicle crashes? I suppose then you could definitely say it crashed! There will always be a need for a person to be available to take over in the event of a system failure.
I agree. It’s a horrible idea
No different than autonomous air flight. The reality is it is coming whether we want it or not
Leave the driving to humans things are getting to where they need to be just fine
Amen to that
Autonomous will not mean driverless. I do feel that all us drivers should be on this committee as well as innovators and safety persons. We need to be sure that all avenues are covered. The tech age is here to stay and getting stronger, but as long as we are careful and mindful of the safety of the public as well as the drivers, we can get this new technology integrated. All drivers should have new training on every aspect of any new technology.
The relative few calm and collected voices of reason exemplified by this comment will of course prevail over the veritable sea of selfish and shortsighted ones.
It’s also true that while autonomous doesn’t mean driverless, the latter is what humans are naturally aiming for, and rightly so.
This should NEVER be allowed in America!!! Besides the FACTS of “Human Job Loss”‘ The DOT Rules and Regulations of Daily Inspections, Road Hazards, Objects, Animals, Detour Situations Accidents, ETC…
Responsibility and Liability???
(The Robit Did It…..BS!!!)
The only benefit is to of course “GREEDY CORPORATIONS”…
Get rid of Human Jobs… Get rid of TAX Payers to Government… No Autonomous NEVER!!!
Use The Railroads…
Does anyone know if the hours regulation will stand? I drive team with my wife. I am not interested in being a solo driver.S should I begin learning a new occupation?
Can’t wait till my truck can drive itself and I can chill in the back. I’ll swing doors, deal with customers and backing into docks etc. We are a very long way from complete autonomy and when we get there. Former truckers will have to find other ways to be productive members of society. The same noise happens when any type of efficiency is made, people cry economic collapse and it never happens. The economy will adjust. If we ever heeded the Cry’s of unemployment we would all be farmers who shun the evil job killing tractors…or construction workers who break their back excavating with shovels because of the evil job killing backhoes and front loaders.
Dude, you’re making rational comments! That will hardly do.
People are incredibly short sighted, and have even shorter memories when it comes to change, especially truck drivers. The majority of highway/OTR trucking is about as low skill as you can get, and it is a sad (but not unsurprising) comment on the mentality of so many truckers that they immediately rail against the technology that already exists in so many other places in their lives, that they are apparently oblivious to.
I am an OTR trucker. I disagree with your low skill comment. It gets pretty skill intensive in high traffic and getting in and out of tight spots. I have GPS but I still do a lot of trip planning. Making and keeping appointments and communicating my schedule to the dispatch team. Planning and taking DOT mandatory breaks to stay in compliance. Fuel stop timing. Updating my permit book 4x a year. Inspecting equipment and reporting defects. Securing cargo. I could go on.
While no single one of these things is very skill intensive it adds up to create a fast paced, high stress job. Not the most skill intensive job in the world I agree but certainly not one of the least.
That is what I think gets other drivers so upset. They hear driverless trucks and they think “no way a robot can do everything i do”. They are right too. Driverless trucks will have limitations and for the foreseeable future at least, jobs for human drivers will be available. As companies integrate driverless the hiring bar might get raised and the “bad” truckers out there will start to be pushed out but I look at that as a good thing.
It’s not going to happen? Relax? Keep telling yourself that when you are sitting in the unemployment line. It is going to happen. Just Google how long it will be before cars will be fully self driving. Common answer is around 9 years. If you think a company won’t pay an extra $100,000 for a truck that drives itself and never have to pay wages, vacation, sick pay or workmers comp, you are sadly mistaken. I would say we need to stand up now and demand better pay, better treatment, but it’s way too late. Most drivers are too stupid to realize what’s going on or just to dumb to care.
100 grand, eh? So tell me/us . . . what is the cost of all the little cars and trucks out there RIGHT NOW, that have radar and sensors that tell the driver when they are:
– drifting out of their lane
– about to move left or right when there is another vehicle to either side
– when they are getting “too close” to the vehicle ahead of them (based on a speed/distance algorithm)
– warns them when they are about to back into something if they don’t have cameras AND radar
and of course, my favourite . .
– the ability to pull up beside a line of parked cars, push a button, and sit there sending text messages to friends and family while your vehicle expertly and effortlessly parallel parks itself?
Same basic technologies, already in use, and a far, far cry from $100k, or even a 10th of that. Also, take your theoretical $100k, and subtract from that EVERTHING that is on a truck because humans need it to be there. I’m betting that all the creature comforts add up to at least $75,000 (or more, including the fact that the chassis no longer needs to be long enough to mount a cab and sleeper, plus no more APU, heaters, and A/C), and in the end, the tricked out computer truck would likely have $20,000 or less in electronics installed.
You might be too young to remember when people said the railroad transporting truck trailers was going to destroy the need for over the road truck drivers…didn’t happen…the real danger to the trucking industry in the future will be 3D-printing…
Great, just what we need in an over regulated industry, more regulations from people who have little or no understanding of what makes this what it is
Maybe we can all get on the systems entitlement and the postman won’t be needed either, just deliver my check…oh wait a delivery won’t be needed, check will be electronically to bank
I wonder how many companies will be able to afford these hugely overpriced rigs. I know a new truck well equipped runs about 135000$ to 155000$. I see 300000$ or more trucks that need to be bought. So in a five year life span of a truck how much will you as a company save.
You need to do some research. The Budweiser article noted a kit that can retrofit an existing truck for far less than your exaggerated truck cost. Additionally, how much money will be saved in truck size, weight and cost when a cab and creature comforts aren’t required to be installed on a highway truck to accommodate a 300lb driver and all his/her junk? You’re also making the assumption that a driver who sits in the back for the majority of a trip, like line/long haul is still going to be paid the same as now, IF there even will be (eventually) a driver in the truck during the highway sections when all that’s need is a driver to shuttle the truck and trailer from the highway drop yard to the dock and back?
DOT advisory committee? This should end well.
/eyeroll
Like pilots, sea captains, train engineers, the trucker will always be needed in the cab of the beast.
LOL, you can already delete the “need” for pilots, engineers and captains, as their automation is decades old. While every type of trucking can not be immediately automated, some perhaps never, lots of highway oriented trucking is a prime candidate, as has been demonstrated already.
I drive a Volvo like the one in the picture above. I can name four different instances where this truck will lose power completely and shut off with no override. Add a steer tire blowout to the mix, and you have multiple scenarios for accidents to happen. I promise that the shortsighted engineers do not even consider these issues when developing this software because they lack the actual hands on experience. I am willing to bet any of these autonomous companies well into the six figure range that they will never make a truck that can go where I can, that can blindside into a tight dock or drop the steer axle off into a ditch and lock the power divider in to pull it through because that’s what I encounter a lot.
It is naïve to think trucking is a warehouse to warehouse, open interstate, clear weather all year long situation. I drive on narrow two lanes with no shoulders, block multiple lanes of roads backing into docks, and can see problems long before any glitch ridden software can. So, if Otto or Uber wants to get in the multi-drop back roads division of trucking, I will sit back and laugh. And being that Uber was losing approximately $7 million a day this year, and that their employees are dissatisfied with the company, I will not worry.
Other major trucking manufacturers need to address the crappy EGR valves, VGT turbos, clogged DOC’s, clogged regen filters, multiple sensor failures, plastic junk mirror covers, low quality body parts and interior trim long before they mount cameras that vibrate and fall off the truck. I cant wait for the inline 150 amp fuse to fail between the ecm and the batteries that causes the truck to lose power, lights, all functions on an autonomous truck in the middle of the night on a major highway. Let the finger pointing begin!
?? Pretty dire outlook . . . I also drive a Volvo like the one pictured, and like the ones that will be prime candidates for automation, once the cruise and engine brake are set, I just move the steering wheel a little bit, every now and then. A computer can certainly do that, not to mention a shaved monkey. On all the automatics out there, which will be the models that are automated, computers already do everything except steering right now. Coming up on 460k miles and there have been exactly zero problems with my truck that are computer related, and mine is not some kind of exception. I can name exactly ZERO instances where my Volvo can “lose power completely and shut off with no override”. Must be a standard tranny/lack of maintenance/driver attention thing, yes?
A tire blowout will be a lot better handled by a computer than a driver screwing around with his/her cell phone/GPS or some of the 4 week wonder course drivers. Poor example.
Another poor example is your tight dock complaint. If you are actually claiming that a computer couldn’t dock in tight situations, that’s only because you have no conception of what a human-less truck actually needs to look like. You think a computer and a bunch of rear facing cameras and range finders (you know, like the ones that have been on ALL KINDS of cars and trucks for YEARS already . . .) can do some simple math and hit a dock almost perfectly every time? You think an autonomous truck will be the same size as the one you drive right now? ??
You know what happens when an autonomous truck has a problem with any of the parts you mentioned, they will do EXACTLY THE SAME THING as a human driver, and that is sit on the side of the road til the tow truck comes. Also, try to remember, that a driver-less truck won’t really care about “important things” (to you) like mirrors, body parts and “interior trim” (LOL) because those parts likely won’t exist on a computer driven truck.
Additionally, you are obviously unaware that other CURRENTLY autonomous battery operated devices, like THOUSANDS of delivery vehicles at and in factories, have DIRECT battery backup in case of major system failure? No, apparently not.
Seriously, terrible, poorly thought out “disadvantages”. Why be an alarmist and defeatist? Why do you think the “evil, greedy corporations” would want to pay for a truck, trailer and driver, when they might only have to pay for a truck and trailer which are run by a computer that doesn’t whine about tight docks or interior trim, and that can, and WILL, run 24 hours a day (pending, of course, breakdowns that would also sideline a human)? Chances are extremely high that once all the human oriented features are stripped off a truck and the automation gear is installed in place of it, the truck will be lighter (more freight), more aerodynamic (better fuel economy) and cheaper to buy.
Also, take a good look at the truck in the picture above. One nice piece of retread in the highway will probably render that lidar useless. Say bye bye to the camera on top of the cab when a hawk flies into it like has happened to me before, or a tree limb knocks it off. Sorry , sir but that’s not covered in your extended Otto warranty, that will be $2500.
Out in the wide open highway systems, I can see this being practical. Within the boundries of city traffic grids, not likely.
The day an autonomous truck navigates its way to a delivery address for 5th Ave. In Manhattan, or something like that, then I’ll be convinced.
Truckers may all end up being local drivers, reporting for duty at huge drop yards/staging facilities forwarding autonomous trucks to their final delivery destination, in many cases.
This will be interesting to watch unfold.
25 HZ, when your oil pressure sensor starts leaking on the drivers side of the block beside the ecm, your truck will shut down. When your oil pressure switch on the oil filter housing gets oil on it on the passenger side, your truck will shut down. When your temperature sensor on top of the head fails, it will shut the engine down. And, tomorrow sometime, pull your battery cover off and look at the 150 amp fuse inline between the ecm and the main power cables. When it fails, it will kill every single function on that truck, from the ignition to the lights, ecm etc. (here’s a quick fix, jump red to red and bypass it temporarily to get it back cranked and off the roadway). If you don’t believe me, tell me your phone number and I will text you a picture of the receipt for the fuse from Old River Volvo in Richland, Ms.
Lack of maintenance, you say? Your truck hasn’t had any sensor related failures? Good for you. I can assure you that any sensor failure is not the fault of poor maintenance. Pay the $85, get an oil pressure sensor, replace it with a deep well (3/4) I believe and it should last you another year or so. Same with the temp sensors and any other ones that work based off resistance read values, and when those values are skewed due to leaking O-rings they will shut the motor off. Short term solution is to just unplug them until you get somewhere to safety.
Its rather amusing that you assume so much about my background, and incorrectly at that. I run about 150,000 miles a year, with my current company for 5.5 years, and I have yet to call a tow truck or breakdown for any of the aforementioned issues, ones that you more than likely could not figure out yourself. I’m am far from an alarmist or defeatist, I carry a tool box with me everyday, and have adjusted more brakes, fixed more lights, replaced more mudflaps, aired up more tires and have 12 perfect, that’s right TWELVE, inspections without an equipment violation at a company with a less than stellar CSA score.
So keep playing virtual reality video games in the sleeper waiting for roadside assistance to replace your blowout since kicking it with your flipflops didn’t alert you it was low. I’ll be on the shoulder with a block of wood, a can of ether, some dawn soap, my air hose and be gone in about 15 minutes.
Oh, and I can send you a picture of me backed to a dock at a 45 degree angle perfectly squared with about a foot between my hood and a wall, no computer truck will ever do that. Go to ILC in Canton, Mississippi and try to get a computer truck to back into those drop yards or even get a trailer out without hitting the one across from it, its not going to happen. If you get tired of video games, google Jalopnik and just watch the hilarity ensue as Autonomous cars drive on a wet track. Peace!
25hz, where do I find these battery back up systems that are insusceptible to failure? I have a battery from a major manufacturer that was made in July of this year that has a dead cell in it already. Let me guess, lack of battery maintenance on my part? Not checking the electrolytic balance? Possibly overcharging due to an overactive voltage regulator? Nope, just a bad battery that I have to replace in the next few days.
Maybe poor maintenance on the engine took its toll? Well its a LS 402 stroker with about 400 miles on it, 600 hp at the flywheel with everything brand new except the oil pan. Maybe I underestimated the dynamic cranking compression? Maybe it needs more CCA’s? I upgraded the alternator, am swapping out to a high torque mini-starter, replaced the big 3 wiring system. What do you suggest? Mind spec’ing me a cam while you are at it, so I can compare it with Brian Tooley’s custom grind?
Are you aware of why ECM’s fail? Don’t kid yourself that your Volvo will be trouble free from ECM issues or sensor’s failing. Your truck will be due for a manual regen, a filter cleaning and a cleaning of the DOC injector in about 30,000 more miles. If they don’t replace the knock sensors, you will be visiting the dealership in a week. I don’t have the “its their truck, who cares if it breaks mentality”. I have the “they entrusted me with this truck, I’m going to treat it will and get back home, and not lose money sitting mentality.” To each his own.
What about if OTTO is on drug????
what happens if a fourwheeler decides to exit right from the left lane and this driverless truck is in the way? Does the ( driver ) get fined for speeding ? Can the truck prevent a jacknife? Will it stop after striking a low bridge? If it goes over a weight restricted bridge what happens? I’m sure some white collar person thought of all these questions but just in case they didn’t I suggested them.
@ 25hz. It was just a number. I’m sure the technology will not cost $100,000. My point was, even if it did cost that much, it’s a small price for a company to pay to replace us. My point was, it’s unavoidable since the industry is full of dangerous, untrained drivers. I have seen the Buick commercial where the car parks itself. People want to say it’s not going to happen. They need to wake up. Most is already here. Ever hear of the Google car?
I’m not sure what to think about this yet. The cost is 30k to 40k for the system, it only works on the interstate (so local driving will be done by drivers), doesn’t work in bad weather like rain, snow or ice. Why would a company actually spend that kind of money for what sounds like to me, a very expensive cruise control system. Most large companies use their trucks for 3 to 5 years and then begin phasing them out, to spend that much more per truck and still pay drivers, I guess I’m old but I don’t see the logic of this happening on a large scale any time soon.
Calm down drivers. Let me ask you this. Who’s going to hook your box ( the correct ones) or your multi stop doubles? Who’s going to make sure trailers are empty or open the doors? Sure the AS400 says it’s empty but city dispatch forgot to input it. Who will placard your trailers or make emergency phone calls? Professionals will. Now calm down and act like one. You are not replaceable….
Landing gear, hazmat locks, glad hands, long load signs. Maybe now I can catch up on Naked and Afraid….
where did and still growing did American jobs go.one word,—– AUTOMATION—
we will never get those jobs back.