Future Era Of Cab-less Trucks Will Be The End Of HOS Rules

Damn. I just realized in the near future everything is delivered to your house via self driving amazon cars. :(

When they remove Engineers from trains and pilots from planes, I'll start to be concerned. Until then, this is all left-wing BS, imo.

Will it happen? You bet.

In my life time? No chance.

USPS Pilot Program:

TuSimple Self Driving Trucks Pilot Program

USPS Pilot Program:

TuSimple Self Driving Trucks Pilot Program

From that article - a chinese company is the biggest investor, and will likely leverage the technology for their own benefit.

The pilot program will also have 2 guys onboard the trucks. I don't see, for the foreseeable future, that trucks without the ability of a human driver to take over, will be operating on the roads for some time.

For this to REALLY WORK - EVERY VEHICLE ON THE ROAD will have to be controlled by a central traffic computer system. As soon as you throw the HUMAN ELEMENT into the mix - it will get SCREWED UP.

I for one - wouldn't mind watching a video on a long boring highway ride, while the truck navigates, then take over for local driving. This can happen sooner than you think.

But fully automated, no human controls in the cab - decade at minimum - and will require no other human controlled vehicles around.

Rick

I think you need to look at autonomous vehicles in the larger transportation picture. Better passenger transportation infrastructure between metropolitan areas is going to be your first major transformation. Already airline passenger volume in the US has more that quadrupled since 1970. High speed trains and more efficient rail passenger transportation is the best way to reduce transportation traffic (and climate change for the tree huggers). Better public transportation and car sharing in urban areas is more foreseeable that autonomous freight transport. As far as autonomous cars, I expect that you will need guidance infrastructure to make it safe (sensors in the roads). This is more practical in urban areas. Getting cars off the highways would not only transform transportation generally, but also make freight transportation more efficient (fewer cars).

The problem that I see with "cost savings" in autonomous freight transportation, is I expect you will need an "attendant" human in these vehicles for at least the first level of technology. If you going to need a live person to be in the truck you have to pay them. Thus, the OTR lifestyle will be the same. You just won't be touching the wheel as much. And because a lot of the retention (and pay) issues involve the OTR lifestyle, your drivers won't necessarily accept considerably less pay.