Driverless Trucking Is the Future

Driverless Trucking Is The Future.

Trailer truck drivers make between $39,000 to upwards of $100,000 annually. Imagine if you owned a trucking company and had twenty of those drivers on your payroll. You’re looking at over a million dollars in wages alone. An innovative company comes along and offers you brand new self driving trucks that are going to save you from this payroll nightmare. How many business owners are going to say no to this? This paper is going to examine the future of the trucking industry with development of self driving trucks.

In March of 2018 the ride sharing company--Uber announced that it will be testing a fleet of its self driving trucks in the sate of Arizona. In the same month, a company called Waymo announced that it will be using it’s self driving cars to deliver freight to Google’s data center in Atlanta. In both cases the trucks will not be completely driverless. Operators will be seated in the trucks to ensure safety as they are still in the trail phase. Additionally, in the case of the Uber trucks, the trucks will only drive autonomously on highways with the operators doing the driving at the beginning and end of the journeys. An article in the technology magazine Verge states that, “A company called Embark has been shipping refrigerators between Southern California and Texas since late 2017. The startup just completed a coast-to-coast trip from LA to Jacksonville, Florida, driving 2,400 miles autonomously.” (Hawkings) These stories are a glimpse of what will inevitably become the future of the trucking industry.

It is inevitable that the trucks will be able to operate fully autonomously in the near future. When that happens the trucking industry will be changes in many ways. Currently there is a nation wide shortage of truck drivers for many different reasons. One particular reason is the demands of the long hours one is required to drive. For example, if a company had to haul freight from the very southern tip of Mexico to the north of Canada, the driver would have to take stop and take several breaks throughout the trip. He would need to take time off to sleep, eat and maybe walk around a little. He would also have to deal with the emotions that come with being away from home for a long time. However, if this same trip is done by an autonomous truck, the break time will all together be eliminated. It is especially important when you consider sleep breaks. You could be able to shade a whole three days off the trip time from that alone. Being able to deliver freight is very important in a supply chain.

According to arstechnica magazine, “Self-driving trucks share the same anticipated benefits of self-driving cars—improved safety, better fuel efficiency, lower carbon footprint. Plus, they also have a tremendous influence on the US economy and workforce.” (Tannert). All these points tie into the notion of cutting costs and improving efficiency. Even if they we to keep the driver in the truck as a monitor, there would definitely be an improvement in safety. The driver can act like a pilot in an airplane flying on autopilot. Issues like a driver falling asleep behind the wheel will be completely eliminated. Trucks driven autonomously will always follow all the traffic rules which is always is a safer way to operate. Further more, most of the the self driving being made are electric or operate on some kind of alternative energy. This plays a pivtal role in regards to protecting the environment from further pollution.  Most people agree that global warming is a real threat to the planet’s existence and that human play a huge role in it. Making majority of trucks on the road environmentally friendly can only help in this regard. Using alternative energy will also mean no need to purchase fuel which provides large savings as well. With the instability of fuel companies can save a great deal of money by using gas free cars, especially on trips where they travel long distances. These saving will eventually be passed down to the customer or used in improving the company.