Possible self driving trucks by 2020?

The technology to have autonomous trains has existed for over a decade yet there is still a conductor and an engineer in every train. And less face it, doing it with trains would be far safer yet it still hasn't been implemented yet. Sure they tested it and the push of a button from a control center can shut any one of them down but for reasons of safety and public opinion they don't use it on a daily basis.

For that matter, if the rail roads ever really got their stuff together long haul trucking would cease to exist. The only real reason it dose is transit times. Shipping by rail is far more effective from a cost standpoint over long distances than trucks even autonomous ones will ever dream of being.

For the OP I say give it a shot. Trucking might change some but it isn't going away anytime soon. It will be a whole lot of years before there wont be a need for meat in the seat. Especially if you eventually specialize in one of the higher skilled areas.

 

That would be the first thing terrorists think of. Wreck 10 trucks off the say... I-95/695 west beltway interchange. Close the entire interstate right about 5:30-6:00 am time period on a monday morning. Fire and explosions are a bonus for SW baltimore. It would take days to reopen.

 

Tell the people of Winnipeg that they want to install MORE rail lines to make deliveries to warehouses. They would riot in the streets.

They are trying to get them taken out of the city, because nobody at city hall for the past couple decades has had the place of mind to build under-/over-passes around the tracks to account for population growth leading to much higher traffic volumes on major corridors.

I still remember when Kenaston Blvd crossed the tracks at Taylor Ave. That's one of the busiest routes these days for traffic... and at least a dozen trains pass through there on a daily basis. I couldn't imagine what it would be like nowadays if they hadn't built the underpass.

 

You're telling me lol

 

Always a good one when you spend 45 minutes going around the south end of the city, coming in on Dugald to go to Pandora only to get stopped by TWO trains. And you have an appointment to unload.

 

Its a neat city though. I spent a day out in Winnipeg last summer and a few days out in Falcon Lake and Kenora. Wish I had some more time to explore though. Would have loved to taken a tour of the Mint. This summer I'm going to wander back out that way again.

 

Let me know when, if I'm in town we could possibly meet up and I could show you around.

 

Will do.

 

Baltimore is paved and graveled over those rail lines that sustained the city since roughly 1832. They went into every little place you can take a reefer now. Most especially. The street in front of my childhood home is paved in 1974 over honest by god Cobblestone and trolley tracks. ALL of that is actually still there under about a foot of pavement that has only been patched since 1974. I can probably take a pick and show people what it used to be if I take a few minutes to dig down to show it today. The city might have a problem with that though and bill me for the pothole.

Everywhere I took a big truck around Baltimore where it can fit Ive had tracks under the feet and wheels that used to take railcars to those exact docks to this day.

Yes America it's entirely possible to run a rail car into every tiny little nook and cranny. Generating thousands of jobs too. But are we gonna? Hell no. It's trucking or nothing at all.

 

Any people getting into the industry right know will still be able to retire from trucking before you'll have the threat of being replaced by a robot. They are a long ways off from sending trucks down the road without a driver.

As has already been mentioned, they can't even get it working on trains, and all they have to do is start and stop.

The technology is already there to get a robot truck to go from point A to point B, but it's grossly expensive, and they have trouble dealing with other vehicles on the road that may act unpredictably. Then you have to add the fact that they whole transportation infrastructure will have to be redone to accommodate driverless trucks, that alone can take decades.

Now none of this is to say that technology won't slowly take over some actions of drivers. It's already happening with crash avoidance systems and such. I mean, all that started back with cruse control and auto trans.