Autonomous trucks... freight trains with more track?
5
Three truckers cut me off on the interstate today with one to two blinks of a left turn signal: one out of “professional courtesy for another trucker napping in the emergency lane, another to get around a slow car, and another to participate in a “uphill truck race” with both trucks going ten miles under the speed limit up a long hill.
I hoping the robots have better manners.
13
I have a Mercedes E350, with The super deluxe cruise control that is suppose to prevent you from crashing into a vehicle in front of you. It automatically slows you or speeds you back up if someone slows down in front of you. Only problem is it doesn’t like even a modest rain condition and flashes it is too dirty for the radar, and turns off not only this, but the navigator. It won’t start the navigation system up for the next day.
I took the car in for service today and asked the Mercedes Dealer, where the radar sensors are so I might wipe it off. They said the round Benz logo in front. I said that is why I had the towel in back. It just off at the Florida / Ga line coming home, I tried to wipe it off. Then it did it again coming back from a funeral in Knoxville. The Dealer told me they have a real problem with it in areas of the country where it snows. I said you would think Mercedes would not have this problem with weather because it is a winter and snow country. All I can say is we are along way off on self driving vehicles!
10
Tain't autonomous driving the truck drivers have to worry about. It's the systems that allow one driving in the lead truck to convoy with two three or four trucks trailing, all linked together electronically.
That's probably the next step.
7
The only truck driver who’s thinking properly about the future is the immigrant from Moldova.
The others are just products of our poor basic educational system and a culture that too often celebrates or at least tolerates ignorance.
30
Our government will need to become more responsive to income insufficiency among people who face either outright replacement due to tech or simply diminished wages and bargaining power. Automation well-implemented will make the country as a whole much richer in the long run (it already has), but this wealth will not be distributed equitably on its own.
Universal Basic Income or a more robust version of the Earned Income Tax Credit are two potential ways of doing this. Democrats really need to make this issue more central to the 2020 campaign and beyond because the facts about tech-driven income inequality and the need to revamp the social safety net are on their side.
9
@Jim C.
None of the Democratic candidates are even willing to brooch the subject because to do so would imply that Capitalism isn't the panacea its supposed to be. Even Warren takes pains to insist she's a capitalist. And for every candidate except Warren and Sanders, they are still quietly courting corporate dollars, so they would never bite the hand that feeds them. Somebody should ask Joe Biden about this eventuality. I'd love to hear the pablum he spouts in return.
3
Interesting that the young man from Moldova is the one with the best perspective. Young. Foreign. Realistic.
27
There is no shortage of things to do in a society with crumbling infrastructure and a zillion other undone tasks. We just need to properly value those needs and retrain anyone losing a job to fulfill them. It’s all a matter of political will and priorities.
7
As a professional driver and life long NYT reader, I’m embarrassed with your graphics and font choices to the point I will forward your article to no one, and I will also tell no one, about your subject... nor main point. Poor journalism and truly a disservice to the public. You might want to consider working with Donald Trump... sorry, I meant Donald Duck. Well... they’re really the same these days anyhow.
50
Why is the NYT quickly becoming Highlights for Kids.
Clicked on this link to read a story and instead got a really bad cartoon with typography that someone thought was "cool". It Isn't.
52
This piece is written and presented in such a juvenile and unprofessional manner. It smacks of your bias, lacks objectivity and gives the appearance of making a mockery of the trucking industry. An opportunity missed to more effectively share “ What truck drivers think” about automation of a critically important contribution to commerce.
55
I can't wait for autonomous trucks. Driving on the interstates in the west you see the trucks weaving in and out of their lanes during the day. When you pass them you see the drivers looking at their phones. Late at night or during the early morning you see either the aftermath of a sleep deprived driver in a ditch or even more lane departures. Autonomous trucks don't get tired. text or read facebook or do drugs while driving. I welcome them.
10
But Steve, when things go wrong as they inevitabiy will, the mayhem on the highway with the momentum of a 53' long missile traveling at speed will be horrific and the blame will fall on a "glitch" rather than on an irresponsible human who may be brought to justice.
7
“ What an Economist thinks about autonomous trucking” would likely not be written in cartoon script. This piece is written and presented in such a juvenile and unprofessional manner. It smacks of bias, lacks objectivity and gives the appearance of making a mockery of the trucking industry. An opportunity missed to more effectively share “ What truck drivers think” about automation of a critically important contribution to commerce.
28
Pretty amazing to hear people in the direct line of fire speak as it it is no problem at all. This is why dumb people get run over by tech. If you were a low level manufacturing worker, you probably scoffed at robots taking your job. But look where we are here now.
6
I drive a 4-wheeler 500 miles a week on average. Got bad weather on I-80? just sit behind that WalMart truck going the speed limit, exactly the speed limit.
I have a lot of admiration for these men and women, if ABS doesn't work on I-80 when it's really slick, AI won't fare any better.
11
Sorry. . you lost me at the artwork and the third grade font. A serious subject dumbed down for readers mostly unfamiliar with the people most impacted by changes in the industry.
50
It's telling that the only trucker who thinks autonomous trucks will be a reality is the 25 year-old.
The true insight comes from Kevin, who tragically lost his sone to an "idiot" driver. Human ignorance and unpredictability is exactly why fully autonomous roads will save lives.
In the meantime, thanks, guys, for doing this work and staying safe on the road.
6
How are you going to rewrite "Six Days on the Road" from the perspective of a computer?
2
There are two questions/issues/comments I would like to make.
Why does the NY Times who has by far the highest education level re their reader of any national general interest newspaper publish this story in drawings and words more appropriate for a eight yr old?
Also, since the invention of the wheel, automation has created as many jobs as it has eliminated.
When done gradually, fairly, over the long run it is a net plus.
19
At first, the human drivers will be better in unpredictable situations, and with more flexibility they will do better. But the human drivers, judging by the rate of accidents and traffic deaths, are not getting any better over time. One thing that the trend has shown already is that autonomous driving tech will continue to improve. Eventually, human drivers will be so much more dangerous than autonomous machine drivers that we as a society will have to consider whether we want and need to allow humans to drive, except in exceptional circumstances. Perhaps only autonomous driven vehicles will be allowed in some lanes, or on certain roads, or a some times of day... and when the autonomous driven vehicles can get there faster as well as safer, the trend away from human drivers will accelerate - driven by humans. We've had automobiles and trucks on the roads for just over 140 years, so this change won't happen right away. But in another 140 years, human-driven vehicles will probably be a dangerous relic of our past society.
4
This seems somewhat related to Elevators - that formerly had operators.
Elevators operate in a very controlled environment - that is the difference from the open Road.
People like to comfort themselves with the "retraining" idea.
Just as we are not all Olympian swimmers or runners, we have different skill potentials other areas.
I suspect there were people whose skill was sufficient to operate an elevator - but not sufficient to operate a semi truck.
I work in the computer industry - I've tried 5 times to learn to be a developer - and it seems out of my grasp - just like winning the Olympic Gold Medal for 1000 meters is out of my grasp.
To those who say "but you could win that medal if you just trained enough...." I reply "show me how it is done."
7
I say replace Senators and House members with A I robots...they'll get a lot more work done in 5 days than our do nothing "public servants" do in a year...
28
One thing I haven't seen covered is the ease with which autonomous vehicles can be hijacked or otherwise tampered with. The danger in messing with a human operated truck is that the driver may not be paying attention, may decide to flatten you, or use a weapon, making it a risky proposition. With an autonomous vehicle, a simple barricade probably will stop the truck dead in its tracks, making it an easy target for theft. I don't see the software having a random, unexpected, response built in for those scenarios. Will be interesting to see how the developers deal with human interference.
6
@Scott Have you seen the movie Robo-Cop? Enough firepower to take out a cartel hijacking squad, assuming AI can distinguish between good guys and bad guys.
2
Hope I'm off the road by then. Have occupied the seat with lots of GPS driven equipment. Mostly high dollar equipment considered the "best" in the industry.
They ALL can suffer "glitches." 5-8 MPH with a driver there to correct steering glitches is one thing but 70 MPH?
No thanks.
7
In his book, The Reckoning, David Halberstam writes about the auto industry. Henry Ford drives a reporter from the Detroit News around Detroit in the new Model T. Ford drives bast a blacksmith shop and remarks to the reporter, "that guy is going to be out of business soon". Ford might have been talking about drivers in the trucking industry. (link to book)
https://www.amazon.com/Reckoning-David-Halberstam/dp/0688048382/ref=sr_1_1?crid=288ON7OCS9KAX&keywords=the+reckoning+david+halberstam&qid=1559340057&s=gateway&sprefix=the+reckoning%2Caps%2C423&sr=8-1
1
As transportation technology advances, autonomous commercial trucking will become a reality.
But it will go in phases or steps... with the first step being specific highway routes between major cargo destinations, where actual real drivers take over for the last miles of urban driving to whatever destination they are scheduled for.
As time progresses and technology continues to advance, more and more routes will branch out and proliferate on the highway systems.
Actual urban point to point will be the last to become autonomous... due to safety risks and traffic congestion. This is one area where personal vehicles will become a reality ahead of commercial trucks.
But it will take years... probably at least another 7-10 years before the first long haul highway routes are certified for autonomous trucks.
5
There are about 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the US. The author interviewed, or reported the views of, four or five of them.
Is there any basis for the reader to believe that these extremely brief comments from such a minuscule sample are representative of the truck driver population?
Between the comic book-like visuals and the utter lack of penetrating analysis, I feel as if journalism has entered a dark new era.
23
I think it was just intended to be a feature story including a little art work, not social research...
7
@Mon Ray Yes, I was left shaking my head and wondering "is this it"? Quite pathetic.
5
2025 - first autonomous trucks appear on the road
2026 - first accident between an autonomous truck and a passenger vehicle. Many headlines, much comment, nothing changes.
2030 - half the trucks on the road are autonomous. Press tires of covering the many crashes.
2031 - truck crash so large it can't be ignored. Congressional investigations ensue. We learn that the autonomous trucks are programmed so that in a crash they will inflict damage on other vehicles rather than allow themselves to be damaged.
2032 - Congress drafts a bill limiting the number of autonomous trucks on the Interstates and the hours at which they may drive, also changing the way they are designed, built and programmed.
2032 - bill vetoed by President Trump Jr., stating that American autonomous trucks are the safest autonomous trucks in the world. Sadly this is true.
2035 - Smithsonian opens its Museum of Human Driven Vehicles
7
Autonomous passenger cars are still in experimental stages, and far from trouble-free. The thinking, perceptions, anticipations and reactions involved in driving something so much larger and heavier would have to be far more complex and difficult. Maybe someday we can have autonomous trucks, but is it really so important that we do have them?
What will be good for the company owners will be far less beneficial for the drivers and everyone else. Maybe the technical side of that is new, but overall that's one of the oldest stories there is...
4
It’s easier to deploy autonomous trucks that work on highways than it is to do autonomous cars that need to work everywhere
1
Autonomous trucks will only work with dedicated highways and special systems .there's way too many human skills involved too change over anywhere near completely .The trials now are like middle of the night /morning dedicated runs on interstates like I 10 from Arizona to California having trucks convoy in a straight line.When you have the sand storms and high wind factors that cause accidents ,that truck cannot reason or decide.The infrastructure would have to be completely dedicated such as Laredo to San Antonio or Nogales to Tucson and right now we can't even fix the infrastructure we have that's failing.They should begin at a Wallmart distribution complex and see if they can even move one around a controlled area and dock it and park it first.Then that would eliminate a lot of good jobs,but it's doubtful to happen and they're hacking truckers pay as it is.
7
You are 180 degrees wrong I’m afraid. The first autonomous trucks will cover the long haul highway driving. Then they will pull over and a human will get in and handle he last few miles and working though the distribution center
2
Auto driving vehicles are on the way. Next year or next decade, doesn’t matter. It will start slow and will increase with time. Over time, there will be lesser truck drivers.
Cargo may be palletized, with local delivery by auto-vans from warehouses stocked by auto-trucks, equipped with loading robots. The delivery models will be worked out.
Maybe there will be exceptions like Hazmat cargo requiring human drivers etc.
Think of drones flying cargo, but pilots flying planes. The landscape will evolve and there will be disruption, with winners and losers. A number of new jobs from AI specialists to robot/auto-vehicle techs, will open up. But lots will suffer. History of cotton ginning, spinning to yarn and making cloth, will give a broad idea how things may evolve.
Hope leaders can build a safety net for those impacted.
2
Won’t happen for a long time. The incredible amount of effort required to map roads and the inability of sensors to “see” people means the technology is just a sham. If it worked the first place you would see it is on buses with a repetitive route. Haven’t seen it? I rest my case.
8
OK, my son runs projects to build the chips that make the idea of a driverless truck possible (to at least contemplate).
Still, a big part of many trucker's lives is judgement. Getting from point A to point B with a truck in decent weather is pretty easy. Not sure how the automation will deal with the sudden chain stop climbing on I80 from San Francisco toward Reno. Not sure how the current practice of trucker's finding their loading dock and unloading (or helping unload).
Delivery vehicles can certainly require lock-boxes with curb-side access. Chain-up and off areas can certainly add "driverless chain specialists". Once all our highways and delivery locations are made "driverless accessable" the trucks can operate pretty well. Is this really a cost savings? Sometimes yes, often no.
Meanwhile, lots of full time jobs become intermittent. where once we were a society of full time workers and part-time tools, we seem to be heading toward a society of full time tools and part-time workers. Convice me this is a good idea.
5
Self-driving trucks will drastically increase efficiency and safety. Trucks can be driven slower for longer periods of time without driver fatigue. Plus, they can use the roads at night when they are the most free. That lure is irresistible to owners. Sad days are coming for truckers and the women that make their living off truck stops.
4
@albert
It's not clear to me that trucks will prevail over freight-by-rail for long haul routes. Freight-rail is superior in terms of cost, safety, and impact on the environment.
Even today... more and more long haul freight is pushed onto trailers and the trailers loaded onto freight flatbed trains for the long haul..... ie: all but the last miles of start-2-destination.
3
Driverless trucks will be the final tunneling out of what once was a worthwhile and valuable middle-class job for thousands. But deregulation, and the endless, relentless pursuit of lowering costs have transformed this sector of the economy. Wages are low, traffic is worse than ever, and drivers are pushed to the limit to deliver the goods, often at the expense of sleep and rest.
I witnessed the beginnings of this transformation years ago, when the company I worked for (supermarket retailing) concluded that transporting groceries was not profitable nor necessary; it could be farmed out, to independent operators who did not have union contracts.
As more people shunned driving as a career, shippers became desperate, to the point that there cases of long haul, cross country drivers in their 80's and 90's.
Automated driving will be here before we know it. The developers of the software will make millions, and, with costs further reduced, everyone along the supply chain will see higher profits. Drivers? They are already on their way out, like lamplighters, and there will be no alternative for them.
All of which suggests that the Times out to spend more time and effort than a cartoon graphic on a subject of such grave importance to a nation as far flung as ours.
8
Yeah, I also hear how AI is going to replace physicians. I always think of that when the electronic medical record stops working for an hour, when my dictation software has me saying the opposite of what I said, and when my computer freezes. What do you do when the computer program driving a tractor trailer stops working? I think these things are technologically feasible at some level but the lack of reliability in most of the computer systems I have worked with makes me wonder whether this stuff is practical and scalable...
5
@Richard
Actually, AI has been better at diagnosis than the typical physician for quite a while now. (current AI technology reads x-rays better than radiologists, for example.)
Better still is a cooperative activity between AI and physician for diagnosis.
Your sub-standard hardware and software should be fixed, no mater what. I worked for a company that made the computers used to process credit card transactions and stock exchanges -- failure rates were far less than once per year.
Hardware does not have to fail any more frequently than a truck driver has a heart-attack. In both cases, the correct response is to put on the emergency flashers, park the truck in the closest safe place, and summon help.
5
This is coming. It is coming soon. It will be disruptive to our economy, but it is coming. See...Luddites!
7
While all the voices in this piece belong to older, white,truck drivers, the format used (kids scrawl) seems to poke fun at newer truck drivers from less developed parts of the world. As one such trucker myself, I feel this is piece is mocking me, even as it talks about taking my livelihood away.
13
Sujeev, one out of four looks black to me. I'd like to think the outlook of the four represent the large number of truckers she spoke with.
2
@Bartolo Yes you are right. In my hurry to go through the piece, I didn't look at each drawing that closely.
Automated trucks sounds great until some corporation forgets to update their software or someone just hacks the entire system during rush hour and causes mayhem.
Replacing humans with machines means more profit. But if you replace all of the workers with machines who on earth is gonna buy your stuff?? Stockholders?
Oh, retrain them to become super scientists or something. Most of us had a bit of a time getting through high-school math and science. And we are supposed to become engineers or sit around with the likes of Dr. Hawkins? Our own president, a stable genius, can't even figure out something called spellcheck.
19
@tom harrison
LOL.. yeah.... I think you are right about hacking and thieving of commercial trucks.
It will be a constant battle between businesses and hackers in a giant technology driven competition to see who is better at exploiting the technology.
1
I wonder how well that computer's gonna back up my fifty-three foot rig, into that tight spot in the alley around the corner next to the Chinese restaurant, and through a very perturbed union picket line. That's what I wanna know.
36
@W You will be the one clearing the picket line at minimum wage while the truck drives itself. Meanwhile, the owner of the trucking company will make 4x the profits. But not to fear, you can always vote for the next Trump who will make trucking great again.
15
@W
Backing the rig is easy for the computer (which will have more sensors and cameras than you likely have today). The likely response to a Union picket line is to simply stop nearby and summon help. Not sure what the automation would do anything about the Chinese restaurant unless it has a thing for fortune cookies.
You also left out another frequent task truck drivers do that seems unlikely to be easy to computerize: unlocking the truck, and unloading a patial load on a loading dock before work starts.
8
Go to the library and check out a copy of Vonnegut's Player Piano -- it's coming.
1
I think I’ll have Amazon deliver my copy via drone.
3
Seems to me that the folks talking about truck driving getting automated have never driven a truck.
15
I wonder when superfans of capitalism are gonna figure out that capitalism doesn’t give a rat’s what they think?
28
Honestly. What is going on with the driverless vehicles movement in this world. If you want to move goods in bulk with minimal human involvement rebuild and modernized the railways.
We have millions of miles of interstate roads with wide medians. Why can’t we lay down tracks for commuter and other rail using those roads that already exist.
Electric rails can be environmentally more friendly that fossil fuel vehicles.
Oh and stop using ride sharing car companies.
Vote for legislators that support a comprehensive overhaul of public transportation. That is the way forward environmentally and politically.
This driverless nonsense is not. Sometimes I think it’s just about the novelty that propels these things rather than the practicality.
50
Personally I don't trust AI to drive a multi-ton vehicle going 80 mph on the road next to my family and I. Too many road condition changes that no computer will ever account for. Just ask yourself whether Boeing predicted its problems that have now killed hindreds and grounded a majority of their fleet. AI is not the answer.
19
@Christopher The idea is driverless trucks would be required by law to be programmed to drive the speed limit, which in states like California would be 55 mph. For us this would be a lot safer than some of the trucks that barrel by at 80 mph, and especially avoid some of the bad behavior and blocking that happens in mountain passes. That said my experience is that truck drivers are good people who usually obey driving laws more than personal vehicle drivers.
19
I agree with Kevin Barnes. I've seen drivers pull some stunts with trucks that amaze me. They don't seem to register that they could be squashed like a bug if that thing runs over them. I don't know if a computer can be made to react to crazy drivers. If everyone on the road just behaved themselves, then it would probably work. But, pulling right in front of a truck and suddenly braking, or turning in front of one or any of the other things drivers do? I just don't see how it will be safe.
6
@Ms. Pea
Here in the heart of driverless car design land, we have a number of incidents of drivers deliberately "teasing" or "trolling" the diverless cars.
Mostly, driverless cars drive like your grandfather, obeying every law and signal. They are now being upgraded to drive more like those around them, running over the speed limit, running yellow lights, etc.
Not sure I am very happy with this trend toward making the driverless vehicles more "human". Next, they could be be programmed to periodically text without checking their instruments or sensors for blocks of 30 to 100 seconds at a time. Perhaps they should also be programmed to sit at a green light for a while, then honk back aggressively if any vehicle behind (including the driverless ones) should honk.
2
@Ms. Pea
The resulting accident will be recorded on the multiple cameras used for navigation. Broadcasting what happens when you step in front of a truck should reduce recurrence. Sure there will be suicides, but people do that with trains now too.
1
Truckers are the last of the American cowboys. They ride the range every day and are away from their families for long periods. (I haven’t seen my trucker-husband since April 14, and, don’t expect to see him until sometime in July.)
I can imagine driver-less trucks on long, lonely stretches through the west. Though I have no doubt there will be a human in the semi. As someone who has ridden across the continent, many things can happen that a computer can’t do and the driver-less truck headquarters can’t be everywhere. Nor can it get someone there fast if the truck breaks down by accident or malfunction.
As for the independent, cowboy aspect of the job, that went away with ELDs, deregulation and the confusing state to state regulation differences. Trucking is down 60,000 drivers across the industry, mostly due to the above.
With a smaller pool of drivers, expensive insurance costs, and liability I can see why trucking companies are looking for some kind of savings. Wonder what new problems they’ll with driver-less trucks.
15
If you look at the age of the drivers that is everything that you need to know about the future. The older drivers think it is a pipe dream while the younger guy realizes it is the future and isn't concerned.
Many jobs will go away with automation and these will be one of them. As a society we need to come together and do what we can to ensure people are able to provide for themselves and their family in the coming wave of automation and skill changes.
11
Regardless of the feasibility of driverless trucks, I'm mostly concerned with the fact that the driver's voices won't really matter. NYT recently had a feature about a midwest town's GM factory closing down. The decision came straight from the management. It is painful to read about how the workers (many worked there since the 1960s!) held on to false hope. And when the hope was shattered, some are still hope against hope that factory could be "un-idled" some day!
11
It's going to be interesting when computer trucks have taken over all delivery services . . . and North Korea detonates an EMP device high above, or a severe Carrington event happens, and all those trucks stop working, and nobody knows how to drive one any more, even if they had human type controls, which they won't.
12
@Laughingdog
Virtually all vehicles are heavily computerized right now. It won't matter much if there is or isn't a driver, the vehicle won't be moving.
6
I'd like to see a self-driving truck put chains on 8 wheels to get over Donner Summit in a blizzard.
57
@DS - good point!
6
@DS
If these trucks are idled in bad weather, they will not run 100% of the time. But right now trucks stop for the worst weather, or for the driver to eat or sleep.
Many businesses are all about asset utilization, and not having a driver will lead to huge gains in asset utilization.
2
@DS it won't have too. There will be plenty of unemployed people they'll call "contractors" to rush out in the cold and snow and put those chains on and get paid pennies to do it. Or the truck will simply park and wait it out - with no driver to pay what will it matter? I take no joy in this but the rush to replace the human element in every capacity of our society is on. Corporations are making plans to replace legions of teachers with AI-based software. Will it be every teacher? Every driver? All at once? Nope but faster than we can imagine it will be here. Check out Tom Ford's Rise Of The Robot.
3
As a Point A Freight Terminal to a Point B Freight Terminal, "over the road", on the interstates, this will likely work as long as the stripes are kept well painted on the interstates. The freight terminals can be designed with standard loading docks that will accommodate automation. But as far as local delivery, we are many, many years away. There are too many unusual loading and unloading situations at customers facilities. Some involve sidewalks, neighbors driveways, and various other strange circumstances. When the receiving company has to explain their unique unloading situation to an autonomous vehicle, who would they speak with? And how would it be programmed ? Every unique facility in the country would constitute a separate programming job, as well as every loading dock door at a facility. The entire logistics of freight would also have to changed. Drivers often count freight in addition to signing for it. Who would be responsible for missing and damaged freight ? There are many logistical issues that will make this very difficult to implement down to the customer level, but long haul truck driver's jobs could be radically affected by this technology and likely will be in the near future.
10
@Rich sadly that driver dealing with unique circumstances will be monitored by Ai software that studies what he does, learns the human driver's performance in that location and then - after gaining the driver's knowledge replace him. This is already happening. Ai is studying workers performance than writing software (no human needed for that either!) to replace the person. Between the Barons of Wall Streets, blind greed is good philosophy and American's love of moralizing about the soul cleansing power of work while refusing to acknowledge that the system is designed to keep millions in perpetual underemployment the future looks pretty bleak.
1
It is not the interstates that will doom self-driving trucks. It is the classic last mile problem. I cannnot see the sensors or algorithims good enough to drive the truck in a congested city full of cars, peds, and bicyclists, and then turn and back into a loading dock.
9
Last mile can be human operated. The human drives the vehicle to city limits — and then the autonomy delivers the truck to the city limits at the destination, where another human driver drives the last miles.
11
I'm seeing a lot of naive comments here. I think many non-tech minded people are underestimating the ever increasing abilities of AI. Of the truckers featured in this article, only the millennial expressed positively the possibility of a computer taking his job.
When I use the advanced cruise control option on my car (not a Tesla) I think about how the drivers 20+ years ago would not have predicted the ability of this technology in their cars. I also think how much further along the technology would be if it was endorsed by our government and old school public. Unfortunately too many people are romanticizing the past, and afraid of the reality to learn a new trade.
25
Wouldn't it make sense to have a human in an autonomous truck? I can imagine long empty highways when the driver would be happy to have the truck takeover and when in an urban environment have the human driver either takeover completely or just interact with the auto system.
6
I am a trucker who is insulted by your shallow article and find it unworthy of my subscription dollars. How about a real,in depth story about how automation will accelerate the wealth transfer machine and sap the income of working-class Americans on a massive scale? The trucking industry would be a great example of the process. Our already inadequate wages and benefits will decline slowly but surely as automation is gradually introduced. How about asking Representative Peter Defazio for his thoughts and plans for the future income of displaced truckers? He has taken large "donations" from American Trucking Association (ATA) lobbyists for over a decade. The ATA represent corporations, not me - and the same can be said for Defazio.
118
It is laughable to me that people believe that self-driving vehicles are the future of transportation. The concept is ridiculously unworkable. Lift your eyes from your screens and have a look at the real world.
14
We have autonomous transportation for the most part, it's called the railroads. Improve the rails and keep trucks off highways.
42
@Jacquie the word "autonomous" has a very specific meaning. Railroad trains are NOT autonomous. Engineers control the vehicle from the engine, conductors and brakman observe and maintain while the train is is in service and hundreds of individuals monitor and control the trains movement from corporate control facilities along the route. No train of any class in the US is capable of "acting on its own". This includes so-called automatic systems like ATC which can ONLY act within the parameters of human written code. Likewise what are called autonomous trucks in this piece are not. They act only within the parameters of their programming, written by humans. Many states will probably continue to require a "human in the loop" either on board or in control centers who will take charge of the vehicle when the situation falls outside its parameters. BTW my bona-fide, 35+ years in the AI domain
8
@Jacquie - Oh, dear, I have to disagree with the railroad part. I remember the Amtrak train that recently ended up in the commuter lane of I-5 during rush hour traffic.
6
I totally agree! Why aren't we investing in our rail system? Horridly outdated it is no surprise that there are accidents. Lets get a rail system that is modernized so that we can avoid the coming motorized apocalypse of AI cars and trucks on the roads.
7
I am unhappy with the inevitable human toll that accompanies the switch to automated vehicles. Based on economic developments of the past 40 years, I am not optimistic that this change can be prevented. Businesses and consumers need to transport goods with trucks but they don't need truck drivers. If automation helps cut labor costs in the endless effort to squeeze out even more corporate profits and enhance stocks then that's what companies and their dutiful lawmakers will pursue. Ironically, truck drivers themselves lean towards libertarianism, the very same economic and political stance that is pushing for driverless vehicles, little to no transportation regulation, or road safety oversight.
5
Interesting comments. Yes, this is a ridiculously shallow article. Let's add a few facts; truckers don't usually load and unload the truck, change flats, or service the vehicle. They require rest periods, food stops, and social interaction. They make mistakes, and they are subject to getting bored, aggressive, and distracted...all while driving a machine that handled improperly is a hazard to everybody else on the road. And by the way, automated trucks already exist, they are already demonstrated to be far safer than man-driven trucks, and being afraid of them is absurd. On the other hand, how many things are we going to let machines do for us? If they take over ALL labor jobs...then what are we supposed to do? It's not actually a hard question; we do things that really do require human intelligence, insight, decision making, responsibility, and adaptability, and we use automation as exactly what it is, a tool to do useful things for us, like drive.
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So you're driving behind a garbage truck on a two-lane blacktop with a stream of traffic approaching in the other lane. There's a bike rider on the shoulder on your side.
The truck malfunctions and drops several large trash bags in front of you.
What do you do? I hope I'd hit the bags, knowing they might damage my car but so what.
What would a self-driving truck do? My guess is kill the cyclist.
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@Edward Moran
I wonder what the effect, positive or negative, would be if self-driving vehicles were forced to identify themselves in someway, say by color or transponder? Of course, the industry would object, because it is their contention that their silicon babies are just as human as we are, but a driver, knowing it was behind a self-driving truck, might give it wider berth. Even the autonomous vehicles themselves could use this information in some manner.
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@Edward Moran you greatly underestimate the skill of computer programmers.
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@EmberontheSea No, he is guessing at the decency of computer programmers (and human beings in general).
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Truckers are in denial. Engineers can (and will) design and build safely operational, AI aware autonomous vehicles. In our market-driven, free enterprise society there is a great deal of money to be made, in addition to the safety and efficiency aspects. The young Moldovan emigre knows the score. I totally agree that our government is not ready for the massive re-training that needs to come, nor are we as a society ready for the UBI (Universal Basic Income).
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@OrangeandBlue - Well, the point from Kevin Barnes should be addressed before our glorious "market-driven, free enterprise" society loads up the NJ Turnpike with self-driving vehicles carrying tens of thousands of pounds more cargo than the weight of individual cars driving all around them.
Too many car drivers are, plainly, stupid - and especially when they are spending too long passing a truck, then pull directly in front of it. Often enough, the same truck has another clueless driver in their car directly behind the trailer.
Why not gradually add helpful features to manned vehicles?
Tesla's "Autopilot" running a car directly under a trailer at high speed, and other cars veering towards the concrete barrier is something bad enough when the vehicle isn't 10 times heavier than the vehicles surrounding it.
An Uber vehicle killing a woman the car's sensors detected in time to avoid her is another example that practicing this technology with the rest of us as guinea pigs is a bad idea - though cheap for the people hoping to profit.
Fully automated vehicles in traffic is something that's very, very, very, very hard to do right. The risk is our "free market" corporate investors pushing things long before they're ready.
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@b fagan
I agree. We bought a new SUV last year that is equipped with the latest "vision" safety features. The system works well in clear weather, but in even a moderate rain or snow storm, some of the features often fail. Automated driving requires a much more complex system than we have. It would have to be fail safe, otherwise what would happen? Would the truck just park itself on the highway because its vision system failed? I'm a bit skeptical about it all - and I am an engineer.
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@Robert - yup - I read the literature, I have worked with computer systems (non-rolling) for decades and the idea that large objects with lots of inertia are ready to steer themselves through lanes of traffic of every description is science fiction. I read a lot of that, too, and some is more convincing than "fully automated vehicles are near".
If investors want to roll out fully-autonomous vehicles, I say follow the approach I've seen where they're talking about slow-moving robots on sidewalks, or slow-moving shuttles on controlled campus environments first. Don't try to tell us that a semi with a load of steel coil on a crowded highway is a good start.
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There is nothing more terrifying to me than the thought of an 18-wheeler roaring down the road without a human behind the wheel, especially in congested urban areas.
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@Matt - The other day, I watched a truck deliver to a Home Depot. I have no idea how one could automate that. It required one person driving and another person stopping the incoming traffic from two directions. And pedestrians back and forth. There was another semi parked in the way blocking sight behind the first truck. People trying to get into the store could not see around the truck to see the worker directing traffic. Plus forklifts dashing to and fro.
Just try talking to Siri or Alexa for an afternoon and put one of them in a truck and a lot of folks are gonna hit the lotto when they get crashed into while Siri pulls up the wrong film.
2
Trucks are a bane on the environment and the infrastructure. Tearing up railroad tracks was the stupidest thing this country has done. I frequently traveled on I40 east of Little Rock, it was often congested with trucks passing each other by 1/4 of a mph. A old local told me there used to be railroad tracks running along I40 but that they were removed. Absolutely insane. Bring back the tracks, let the truckers drive the final few miles in much smaller rigs.
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I dunno. I think that self-driving cars is a dumb idea unless you ban human-driven ones. But long-haul trucking where a human has to take take the truck to the highway and to get it off the highway might could work. The highway is a very controlled environment. You would just have to put in place the correct rules for these trucks. These rules would not allow the truck to do any fancy maneuvering and might slow transit down. Think of it: No more trucks over the speed limits! No more trucks cutting you off or tail-gating. My hunch is that it could be made safer, as long as we don't let the trucking industry write the rules.
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If this is a weeks work, I'll come out of retirement. Very shallow glance at a very troubling subject.
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@TED338 I couldn't agree more. When I saw the headline, I thought okay, here's a story I want to read. I assume the reporter spent most of that week working on his illustrations. This being a newspaper, I was looking forward to actual words. Oh, well, wrong again.
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It's inevitable that trucks will become driverless. Anyone who has driven I-90, I-80, I-70, or I-40 across the vast emptiness of the Western US can see why this is so. Eventually all vehicles on these routes will be piloted by automated systems and move in 'trains' for reasons of efficiency. Of course the ulimate efficiency would be if much more freight and human traffic moved by rail but, since we live in the US of Oil Lobby, that ain't gonna happen.
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I'll take the potential for human error and keeping hundreds of thousands of blue collar, respectable jobs over a hackable algorithm and employment for a few dozen programmers and hundreds of computer assemblers in China any day.
What do these evangelists of autonomous driving suggest happens with the drivers they seek to displace? Yes, I know what economic theory says. But what really happens...go see how long it took Cleveland, Youngstown, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and dozens of other communities when steel and manufacturing followed economic theory. Perhaps we're richer overall as a country. But at what cost?
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@Jim R.
Haven't you heard? Workers displaced by technology will all be re-trained in high paying green energy jobs. It's true, just ask the coal miners!
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@B Dawson And high-tech - don't forget how we're going to send all those high-school trained truck drivers and turn them into highly-sophisticated software engineers!
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@Jim R. You are right on the money, brother. Only the biggest companies will see any benefit if driverless trucks come into use- I'm talking Walmart, UPS, Fedex & the biggest hauling companies.
The independents & smaller freight haulers will be hurting.
Too many progressives are so wrapped up in technology that they won't deal with the human toll of THIS technology. For shame!
3
One aspect not addressed in this silly comic book attempt by a graphic drawer to be a reporter: Long haul truck drivers are not just driving the truck - they must monitor and care for the load they're delivering, which may mean tightening/re-positioning loads that are chained down or covered with tarps, fixing flat tires, sometimes assisting stranded drivers, managing delivery change orders...many responsibilities beyond steering a vehicle down a road. Even if the driving itself were automated, a human would need to be onboard...unless robots are expected to take on those roles as well. Yeah, right.
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@Aaron Taylor And yes, robots will eventually take on those roles as well. The world has changed, and it will continue to change. And some humans, probably most, are going to have a tough time adjusting.
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Autonomous vehicles need to have reserved roadways. Mixing human drivers with automatons will invite disaster. Try driving on a crowded inter-city interstate like I-80, I-70, I-10, I-95, or I-5, and imagine having driverless vehicles in that already-volatile situation. At least there, the human drivers manage to mostly behave like an orderly school of fish, very rarely bumping one another as they drive in mysterious synchronisity towards Dayton or wherever. But any attempt to get all the humans off the highways will result in a revolt that will make the current gun rights battle pale. These reserved roadways will need to be carefully controlled by computers, for greatest efficiency. Multiple trucks can then be hitched together for even greater efficiency.
Oh wait, we already have this. It's called railroads.
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@Voter
You are woefully out of date.
There are hundreds of thousands of nearly autonomous vehicles already on the road. I routinely drive 50-100 mile stretches of crowded freeway with no more input than holding the steering wheel. Entering/exiting the freeway, lane changes, speed management, dodging people invading my lane, rerouting for traffic snarls? All automatic. I could be asleep, but then my hand would fall off of the wheel and the vehicle would pull by the side of the road and wait till I responded again.
5
I recently read a study which stated that if every car on the road was autonomous, highway fatalities would be reduced by 95%. On the surface that sounds like a lot of gibberish and hype, but when you think about it, nearly every accident, 98%, is caused by poor human judgement. Everything from driving too fast when roads are slick to weaving in and out of lanes to driving too close, the driver is almost exclusively at fault, without exception. Take the human factor out of the equation and you are left with a very safe mode of individual transportation. Very few accidents are caused by mechanical problems such as a blowout.
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@Marc Jordan yeah good thinking. Imagine the chaos and carnage that a hacker could cause...just for fun.
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@Marc Jordan
You got it. EVERY comment about autonomy being bad vs human decision good is a hollow, specious and self serving one.
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@Mrs. Sofie
Nothing self-serving about a handful of people gambling everyone's future so they can cash in big time.
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I know someone who deals a lot with truck drivers due to her work (in the medical field). Apparently when she talks about self-driving trucks with them, very few are worried that it is going to be a thing.
Yet driverless trucks are not that far away, and much closer than driverless cars: sure there are a lot of issues for which no solution is really in sight for fully-automated trucks from start to finish. But having three or four trucks following a human-driven truck on highways across the country does not seem very complicated from a technical point of view and could come very soon. You just need humans for the last few miles, and that’s a lot of jobs lost in a not-so-distant horizon.
As a society we are pretty much in denial about the fact that so many people will get unemployed when this happens (just like retail jobs are going away because logistical platforms on the Amazon model are so much more efficient and in line with what people want). No reconversion or training program is in the pipeline. It’s not as if we would get much jobs coming back in the coal or the manufacturing industry even in Trump’s best case scenario, so what is the plan?
25
There are many issues to unpack here, so I’ll just say that one of the major reasons for a transition to autonomous trucks is that the driver population is aging and retiring, and not many younger people want to do this job so there is a big driver shortage. And long haul across the country for weeks ain’t too much fun either.
5
@JMC. People retiring and young people not picking up the slack would only matter if that was causing an upward pressure on wages, which would indeed create an incentive to develop driverless trucks. But I don’t think that is where we are: truth is being a truck driver does not pay well anymore, meaning companies don’t really need to raise wages to attract more people.
And I don’t think it really matters: once the technology is ready it will replace drivers no matter what. If a company can transport five trucks across the country with only one driver I don’t think wages can be low enough for them to hire five drivers instead.
4
The human element of decision making necessary cannot be executed by computers due to complexity of human behavior a machine and condition - each is mutually independent to get the job done.
4
I find the thought of driver-less cars and trucks scary. We have a long way to go before this technology is really viable. Granted, human error is still a number one factor in vehicle accidents, but I wonder how the nuances of expert drivers like many of the experienced and responsible truck drivers can be replaced?
8
I worked with a guy who manged truckers for a major company in Missouri. He was something like a dispatcher for an insanely complex logistics system. You wouldn't believe some of the stories he told. John Coleman is right. Trucking is a people person job. Most truckers aren't persons people want to deal with. Not managers anyway. I can't tell you the language my co-worker dropped describing some of the episodes he was forced to endure. Suffices to say he quit.
In general though, I think truckers are more right than wrong. I don't think computers are capable of automating the entire process. You still need to load, unload, refuel, turn off the off ramp, back into the loading dock, and so on. So what? You're going to pay a driver to ride along? What's the point? I don't see much value add for the investment. You'd probably be better served teaching drivers more soft skills in their professional conduct. Just saying.
5
@Andy: Here's one story related to that 'stupidity', told to me by a brother-in-law w/25+ years driving: A fellow trucker in his company managed to wedge his load under a bridge with severe damage to everything, all because he intentionally strayed from his planned route laid out beforehand so that he could stop by his girlfriend's home for a "minute". The route was specifically planned to allow for his high-profile load to not encounter any bridges lower than that height.
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@Aaron Taylor
Well, a friend of mine lives in Upstate NY and told me about a steeply treacherous stretch of road which is routinely closed during the winter. Every year the State Police have to rescue drivers who were blindly following their GPS, which didn't "know" the road was closed. Why would a robot truck be any less susceptible to such mishaps?
1
One aspect of automation not mentioned would be the ability to drive a vehicle remotely. Instead of the driver being in the truck, he/she could be at home doing the driving via satellite link. 8 hour shifts, a normal family life, and sleep in your own bed every night.
Of course unfortunately all those jobs would go to countries where people make $50 a month.
Having said that the format of this article is ridiculous. What's with having to scroll through a bunch of crude drawings? It's a serious subject and is presented like a child's picture book.
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@The Poet McTeagle
LOL
I enjoyed it and read through to the bottom. It's just another way to tell a story, in this case, an effective way... surely as a poet you understand not everything has to be as dry as a textbook...
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@The Poet McTeagle
I thought the same thing. I went all the way to the end because I was expecting, well, an article.
Perhaps it says something about the attention span of readers.....
16
If the age of self driving trucks are upon us then the current truckers who have a career behind them are the last of their kind. Any tech company worth their salt would understand that the wisdom and collective experience held by these truckers is beyond anything an A.I will be able to learn. In fact this wisdom should be paid for and utilized by the tech companies to further improve their trucks. The tech companies also know that they will have to convince sell the public, leaving thousands of experienced truckers unemployed is not a good look, especially when the inevitable accident happens. To mitigate this the tech companies should hire the experienced drivers to be in the trucks to not only provide feedback and suggestions but to provide a fail safe in event or emergency and assure the public. It’s a win win for everyone.
3
oh lord. I was a professional driver for 5 years, drove all over the lower 48, stopping after my husband and I paid off the house, the car, and paid cash for a lot of home improvements. He still drives, but I stay home. This driverless vehicle thing will not work unless either ALL vehicles are driverless or ALL vehicles are driven by humans. This mix and match is not compatible, as proven by past accidents between the driverless Google cars and human-driven cars. People are unpredictable. Software depends on predictability and because of this, the two will never meet in the middle successfully. Just my two cents, for whatever it's worth, because I'm just a trucker.
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@Wendy I think you are right. The good news is that in busy areas like LA in 20 or so years driverless cars will be the law, at least on freeways. There's no other way to reduce commute times and increase road carrying capacity (your "reduce unpredictability" comment). One other change? Car ownership will go way down as people opt for cheaper ride-hailing autonomous cars. The two changes will mean the end of the car as we know it causing the collapse of the auto industry (far fewer cars), and related businesses including repair shops, most garages, dealerships, and most importantly, the insurance industry (much smaller business).
3
A lot of this would have been moot if we had still invested in, and maintained rail transport. Instead, years ago at Detroit's behest, we turned our country into a sprawling, tangled skein of 8 lane concrete ribbons, most of which have now been left to rot in exchange for tax cuts for the wealthy. An efficient system would transport the vast quantity of goods by rail to central hubs, and then trucks, manned or unmanned, could take it from there. So instead of millions of robot vehicles traveling from coast to coast, programmed to engage with every possible eventuality, and often failing catastrophically, we'd have a few thousand train operators doing most of the snoozing.
First it was Detroit that had us bamboozled about the marvelous "world of tomorrow", then it was Silicon Valley. Ironic, that the railroad barons, the original targets of big-business vilification, were right all along.
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The USA has the largest most extensive rail network in the world.
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@Zamboanga
Largest only because we have a large land mass. We are woefully out of date with our rail system.
13
Cut to 5-10 years from now when these guys have been replaced by automation and none of them have spent the intervening time acquiring any new skills.
14
Most truckers are older and younger folks are not replacing them.
1
No one wants to think they can be replaced - until they are. Truckers should be organizing now to negotiate security jobs as guards required to stop hijacking.
13
Many drivers are already part of unions, but union contracts typically only last for 3 or 5 years. They simply can't collectively bargain themselves into permanent job security. With the expiration of each contract comes the risk for a drastic restructuring. That is why we are seeing those GM plants closing in Ohio, contract is up!
2
Mrs. Turpin is wrong. This is not a pipe dream but a reality barreling down the highway at 65 mph. Trucks will be automated. They will be greeted by robots who will remove the merchandise from the trucks. Robots can and will do their job.
7
In general, I think the concept of the driverless car or truck is an abomination. And especially the idea that a driver would need to have their hands on the wheel "just in case." I think much of the drive towards this technology is that all the tech and car giants want to be first so that they can license their proprietary technology. Whoever is first and sets the standard will have the "Windows" OS of driving automation. Will it create new jobs?
Yes, but much of that coding can be done anywhere in the world (wherever it's cheapest, of course).
That said, I was almost killed on the interstate when a truck failed to slow in a construction zone. It totaled my car and two others.
Could AI have alerted the driver and applied his brakes? Would have been nice to avoid a concussion, surgery and two years of vertigo.
So while I'm against the idea of totally driverless vehicles (thanks a lot, Steven King...), I do think AI can be implemented more to help prevent accidents.
20
@Scott ColeThe newer trucks even to 2015 have auto braking systems that would have stopped.The 2017 I had recently would stop the truck without me and it's quite a surprise when that happens.
1
@Alan Einstoss Actually come to think of it now ,with a flatbed load strapped and or chained a driver could have more serious problems with the automatic braking systems.That could cause the load to come loose and as has happened, take out the tractor and driver.
1
I understand the imperatives leading to more and more automation, but what will all the “redundant” former workers do with their time? Do we expect they’ll all find rewarding careers in IT, or find fulfillment in hobbies? Or just sit at home waiting for their monthly dole?
3
seems wisdom doesn't have to do that much with age
10