Another area that I have been been watching closely for the last ten+ years is the fledgling Autonomous trucking industry. which up to a few years ago, was trying unsuccessfully to carve a entrance into the long haul and local delivery markets. Along came Covid and world supply chain problems, which has caused a resurgence of interest in it.
Of note, the strain on delivery services,(standing in line for hours on end to pick up a container without getting paid for it!) has caused a lot of truck drivers to retire early. The thing that nobody expected, was that there wasn’t a rush of new young drivers to replace them. I’ve heard of some trucking companies having from fifteen to thirty percent of their trucks sitting idle from lack of drivers.
So against this negative background, Autonomous trucking industries that have been languishing in the background, are starting to gain traction. :)
and another story that is pretty interesting
The Autonomous Truck Revolution Is Right Around The Corner
Also some new concepts have arisen from their deployment, one of them is the concept of the “middle mile”…
” The middle mile is not the “first mile” — the distance traveled between an origin, like a warehouse, and the highway. And it is not the “last mile” — the distance between an exit off a highway to a destination site — a factory, warehouse, or store for example. The idea is that the middle mile will be a terminal near an interstate to a terminal located not too far off an interstate exit.so that Autonomous trucks won’t have to navigate the more complex and accident prone areas of congested cities.
The other thing that is pushing Autonomous trucking, is that drivers are only allowed to drive for eight hours before taking a break, and only allowed eleven hours a day, while an autonomous truck doesn’t have that limitation. The efficiency and faster delivery because of that will push the industry forward quickly
Trucks Move Past Cars on the Road to Autonomy
The interesting thing is that it is a lot harder and requires allot more AI savvy to navigate around in a city versus out on the highway, so it makes sense that the trucking industry will start to race ahead of autonomous cars, at least in the “middle mile” market. I suspect they will let the car industry figure out how to deal with all of the inner city traffic problems first, then cut and paste the solutions when they have matured. That being said, watching truck drivers navigate down back lanes and picking up garbage containers has always fascinating for me.
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