self drive trucks

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
41

Harry Monk:

Evil8Beezle:
I’m quite looking forward to the bulk of my drive being done by a computer, the bit that worries me is whether I have to sit there with my eyes glued on the road just in case the computer screws up.

Don’t worry, when the bulk of your drive can be done by computer, you’ll be down the dole office. :wink:

Personally… I think self-driving trucks are 5-10 years away, but when they do arrive they will take over from driver-controlled trucks as quickly as automatic gearboxes took over from manuals.

I’m hoping and expecting it being a while before Joe public is happy about seeing huge trucks going about their business with no driver, sorry I mean no safety/backup mechanism in it. It’s what we’re expected to be doing then comes into play…

Juddian says he’s gone the second the truck steers itself.
But I’ll stick around longer, just as long as I don’t have to sit there holding the wheel like a dummy! :open_mouth:
Which I’m actually quite good at, as Pop’s did the groundwork! :smiley:

42

Yes but this doom mongering is all based on the idea that truck drivers will be no longer needed.
I would just point out that most trains and all passenger planes have drivers/pilots regardless of the fitted technology.
Theres no doubting they can produce this tech, but well still be needed.
I was cut up by a two cars approaching a roundabout last week, I was in a new truck with auto-brakes. It slammed them on way too hard when matey-boy came in front, and my 25 ton load of steel gave me quite a cause for concern let me tell ya…

43

Like I said earlier. There is not a cat in hells chance that a computer controlled artic could handle class 1 multi drop around Bradford or Blackburn or any number of similar type places unless every single human controlled vehicle is taken off the roads and that is donkeys years away. How is it going to react when it has to back into a gate on a terraced housing estate with its cab on the path inches from peoples front doors etc? Just yesterday for example I had a delivery on Charles Henry street in Birmingham. It was absolute bedlam, complete mayhem. There aint a computer alive that could make that delivery under current road conditions. There are too many variables.

I welcome more automation in trucks in some aspects, Id gladly hook up to a convoy and travel down the M1 whilst watching the telly or whatever but I envision that the day when the driver is completely obsolete is way way off and I think that before that day comes the job will get a hell of a lot easier because of all the driver assistance.

I am mid thirties but I would hazard a guess that I’ll be approaching retirement age before all lorry drivers will be put out of work. The implementation will be gradual and there will be massive setbacks along the way and we all know how unreliable computers can be. :confused:

44

commonrail2:
…and can you imagine what fun,kids could have,with a convoy of driverless trucks.

agree with that,kids nowadays can hack into anything if it’s computer controlled

45

Or just stand in front of it…then smash it up

46

Self drive trucks and cars will never happen , here is why . They rely on GPS which is one ,not 100% reliable and two GPS can be blocked with GPS blockers . Terroists and the like would have a field day lol

47

Stevo0909:
Self drive trucks and cars will never happen , here is why . They rely on GPS which is one ,not 100% reliable and two GPS can be blocked with GPS blockers . Terroists and the like would have a field day lol

And if the truck can recognise where it is on a predefined/loaded route or alternative routes, it wouldn’t need GPS.
OS are working on improving their mapping data, and google street view has images to map against. So it’s not inconceivable that rather than GPS, it reads it’s location via these references.

48

On the plus side,hitchhiking will be a doddle.

49

That man can never be replaced by machine ever, end of story, end of debate

50

We’ve just voted to leave the EU, because of all these immigrants coming and taking our jobs, what are we gonna do about these computers taking our jobs?
Another referendum?
Where is Nigel Farage when you need him?

51

So who are we to believe about self-driving trucks? Companies like Mercedes-Benz, Scania, Volvo and ZF, who are investing hundreds of millions in the idea, or the usual know-it-all naysayers from the lorry driving community, many among which find it a major challenge to pilot one in a straight line?

Tough one, that.

52

Olog Hai:
So who are we to believe about self-driving trucks? Companies like Mercedes-Benz, Scania, Volvo and ZF, who are investing hundreds of millions in the idea, or the usual know-it-all naysayers from the lorry driving community, many among which find it a major challenge to pilot one in a straight line?

Tough one, that.

It is more than a few hundred million. There is more invested in developing this worldwide than the EU annual sales of trucks. Billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people are getting autonomous cars and trucks working, Their collective intelligence have thought about problems that nobody here has even thought about.

Drivers can stick their head in the sand and ignore it all they want, it will just pass them by.

This is no longer driven by just car and truck manufacturers, Bosch hired 30,000 people to work on this, the likes of Apple, Baidu and Google are investing half a trillion dollars in developing autonomous vehicles, NVIDIA has 25,000 people working on this. There are companies and manufacturers involved in this that the average truck driver has never heard of.

There are more people in the world working on this than there are truck drivers in the UK, the issue of who will spend the money once the drivers lose their jobs has already been resolved. Don’t underestimate the Chinese manufacturers and consumers either, there is a 2-3 trillion dollar market over there for this annually.

Just think of the ultimate goal in this, manufacture a truck for 30k, as it needs no cab/conveniences that can run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with no driver that keeps getting in the way. Drivers are a huge expense that everyone would love to get rid of. It is a no brainer.

Governments and the population at large would love it to happen tomorrow. No more truck stops, no more services, no more trucks parked overnight all over the place, deliveries at night with electric/hybrid trucks, no more elephant racing on 2 lane motorways, the list goes on. Of course the biggest of them all, cheaper consumables.

I read a lovely statistic a few weeks back that fits right into this argument, 65% of primary school children will have jobs that haven’t been invented yet. Truck drivers are so passé…We are like dodos, extinct, not all of us know it yet though…

53

wheelnutt:

Olog Hai:
So who are we to believe about self-driving trucks? Companies like Mercedes-Benz, Scania, Volvo and ZF, who are investing hundreds of millions in the idea, or the usual know-it-all naysayers from the lorry driving community, many among which find it a major challenge to pilot one in a straight line?

Tough one, that.

It is more than a few hundred million. There is more invested in developing this worldwide than the EU annual sales of trucks. Billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people are getting autonomous cars and trucks working, Their collective intelligence have thought about problems that nobody here has even thought about.

Drivers can stick their head in the sand and ignore it all they want, it will just pass them by.

This is no longer driven by just car and truck manufacturers, Bosch hired 30,000 people to work on this, the likes of Apple, Baidu and Google are investing half a trillion dollars in developing autonomous vehicles, NVIDIA has 25,000 people working on this. There are companies and manufacturers involved in this that the average truck driver has never heard of.

There are more people in the world working on this than there are truck drivers in the UK, the issue of who will spend the money once the drivers lose their jobs has already been resolved. Don’t underestimate the Chinese manufacturers and consumers either, there is a 2-3 trillion dollar market over there for this annually.

Just think of the ultimate goal in this, manufacture a truck for 30k, as it needs no cab/conveniences that can run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with no driver that keeps getting in the way. Drivers are a huge expense that everyone would love to get rid of. It is a no brainer.

Governments and the population at large would love it to happen tomorrow. No more truck stops, no more services, no more trucks parked overnight all over the place, deliveries at night with electric/hybrid trucks, no more elephant racing on 2 lane motorways, the list goes on. Of course the biggest of them all, cheaper consumables.

I read a lovely statistic a few weeks back that fits right into this argument, 65% of primary school children will have jobs that haven’t been invented yet. Truck drivers are so passé…We are like dodos, extinct, not all of us know it yet though…

How long have we had post codes and sat navs… and that works perfectly doesn’t it :laughing:

All these eggheads and all this money and they can’t get a simple postcode system right :smiley:

Laughable!

54

What happens when the driverless truck rocks up to the RDC gates and Hitler behind the barrier won’t let it in as it was delayed for 2 hours at its last one and now it’s too late? Does the truck go into full on HAL mode and kill the security guard, or does it fizz a little and then combust?

55

Just got to call you out on this one - aircraft do NOT taxi or take-off themselves. There is an ‘Autoland’ facility, but as of yet there is no autopilot that supports automated take-off.

Pilots are still very much ‘hands on’ the aircraft during the crucial periods (take-off, approach, landing, taxi etc), with the autopilot taking care of the long, boring bit between 400 feet and final approach.

Regarding it being more complex, I’m not so sure. It is much easier to design an automated system which will be used solely in an environment saturated with professionals and aligned procedures than it is to design one to operate amongst millions of vehicles which, for many years, will still contain unpredictable, amateur drivers.

dunchues:

wheelnutt:

commonrail2:
And then people will become so disillusioned with the way there lives are going…they’ll lash out,and vote for any crackpot who pops up and offers change.

Why would people become disillusioned? No need for the capital outlay for a car especially if you live in a big city, pay for when you use it and it disappears from your street when you don’t, City centres will be just cafes and terraces, no need for car parking, clean and quiet electric taxis when you need it. Cheaper goods in the store as the deliveries are automated, quieter roads. Even if you want to go from London to Birmingham, you can join a car convoy doing 100 MPH while watching a movie or in case of Dipperdave do something else with your time. Once you get there, no need to park, just get out where you want to be.

Clean and quiet city centres without diesel fumes, deliveries are done at night so you would hardly ever see a truck or delivery once they are electric.

I see this as a win-win. I would go as far as saying cancel HS2 and invest the lot in autonomous transport and we can have it up and running in a year. Convert all motorways to autonomous transport and you would never have to worry about numpty in his beat up Golf ramrodding a convoy. You could go as far as banning private car ownership.

I can see one of the Scandinavian countries putting all this in place in 6 months if they set their minds to it. Don’t think that people in government aren’t thinking about it, especially in rich western countries and city states like Singapore and Honk Kong.

The technology is here and just about finished to be implemented, plenty of governments are adapting and changing the laws, including ours, so it is only a matter of time.

All the car and truck manufacturers are just about ready and have working models, now we need the legal framework, something that our government is working on and it will happen. Most of the population especially in big cities would champion this once they see how it improves their life and their environment.

In London for example, you could ban driver driven cars from 70-80% of the access and egress routes and use them for autonomous vehicles only over a weekend and ban all cars from the congestion zones except autonomous vehicles over a weekend. Then you take sections of motorway and only allow autonomous vehicles in certain lanes or during certain time, you could have them use bus and tram lanes, there is lots we can do very quickly and cost efficiently. Sweden switched from right hand drive to left hand drive on a weekend, very similar.

For now we would still need a handful of drivers at each RDC to park them on the bay and do the Shunting, until that is sorted. I guarantee you that there are meetings taking place right now between our government, the manufacturers, the suppliers and the supermarkets/shops/distributors.

I don’t like your predictions much but I think you’re right on the ball.
Nowadays even airplane pilots are just there for unexpected emergencies , the computers start the motors, taxi, take off, land etc without any interactions at all and that’s got to be a lot more technologically advanced than programming a truck driving a to b.
I can see some jobs hanging on for a while and a permanent need for a few but anyone who thinks it’s years away is wishfully thinking I reckon.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see driverless cars becoming the majority before trucks though, in Philadelphia right now there are driverless taxis operating. Seems like blade runner to me but the technology is already here, it’s not expensive, it costs less overall than a driver does and sadly it’s the future.
I work in North America so my view is shaped by the market here but I think it’s the future.

Sent from my SM-G928V using Tapatalk

56

the maoster:
What happens when the driverless truck rocks up to the RDC gates and Hitler behind the barrier won’t let it in as it was delayed for 2 hours at its last one and now it’s too late? Does the truck go into full on HAL mode and kill the security guard, or does it fizz a little and then combust?

Once driverless pallet trolleys are invented, driverless trucks won’t be getting delayed for two hours at the last RDC. :wink:

57

Harry Monk:

the maoster:
What happens when the driverless truck rocks up to the RDC gates and Hitler behind the barrier won’t let it in as it was delayed for 2 hours at its last one and now it’s too late? Does the truck go into full on HAL mode and kill the security guard, or does it fizz a little and then combust?

Once driverless pallet trolleys are invented, driverless trucks won’t be getting delayed for two hours at the last RDC. :wink:

They are already here, Walmart in the US have them, Aldi in Germany have self tipping and loading warehouses, Tesco, and Sainsburys are testing them, Amazon is building its new warehouse in Basildon with them (that one will even have robot pickers, eliminates 3,000 jobs), no forkies required. The new ones that are out now don’t even use the magnetic paths anymore, they are fully autonomous.

Forkies have a shorter lifespan than we do.

58

the maoster:
What happens when the driverless truck rocks up to the RDC gates and Hitler behind the barrier won’t let it in as it was delayed for 2 hours at its last one and now it’s too late? Does the truck go into full on HAL mode and kill the security guard, or does it fizz a little and then combust?

We just know it can only be both. :smiling_imp: :laughing: :laughing:

59

Harry Monk:

the maoster:
What happens when the driverless truck rocks up to the RDC gates and Hitler behind the barrier won’t let it in as it was delayed for 2 hours at its last one and now it’s too late? Does the truck go into full on HAL mode and kill the security guard, or does it fizz a little and then combust?

Once driverless pallet trolleys are invented, driverless trucks won’t be getting delayed for two hours at the last RDC. :wink:

And before you wonder, a German firm has already developed and rolled out an autonomous yard shunter.

knorr-bremse.co.uk/en/press/ … _31936.jsp