What do you think of this?
globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. … ip-on.html
The big splash will not be personal vehicles, but rather the loss of millions of long-haul truck jobs and short-haul taxi jobs to automation.
Those jobs will vanish by 2025 at the latest. Something between 2020 and 2022 seems more likely, and even 2020 would not be much of a surprise given the speed of announcements.
First time I’ve seen a remotely feasible date mentioned. Most on Reddit seem to think its going to be next year. In the UK its most likely to start out with the same routes they were considering using for those super long doubles. Personally I’m all in favour of seeing the end of 13hr sole destroying night doing trunks to parcel/pallet network hubs which are the most likely to be amongst the first to get automated.
The one thing everyone forgets though is that it isn’t just reliant on self driving vehicle tech. In the case of trucks it needs infrastructure changes at both collection and delivery points. Somehow I can’t envisage your local Nisa store having a few tens of thousands of pounds available nor in many cases even being able to put gear in place for those which are kerbside deliveries.
I reckon I and most on here will be driving trucks until we retire. I reckon my son who is about to start will get 20 years.
I think I would pretty much agree with all that, regular trunking between major cites with depots adjacent to the motorway network would be the first to go … computers are good at dealing with monotony and an autonomous truck will always be fully alert, where as you have to wonder how switched on a human is when they are doing the same repetitive boring drive night after night.
As a side thought; although cyclist come in for a lot of criticism from drivers, they may well be a blessing in disguise, their unpredictable and often poor road craft demand very high levels of experience and skill on behalf of the driver to keep them safe. These types of skills are where humans can still out perform computers … so next time you see a cyclist, think on, these could well be keeping you in your job.
Too many variables, as soon as the first big crash happens, and it will, it will slow em down.
A older version of this already exists, its called the railway. The only problem is it costs so much each end that its cheaper and more efficient to let pavlov do the whole trip.
Concretejim:
Too many variables, as soon as the first big crash happens, and it will, it will slow em down.A older version of this already exists, its called the railway. The only problem is it costs so much each end that its cheaper and more efficient to let pavlov do the whole trip.
You’re right. There are two main reasons why long-haul rail carriage of anything other than bulk loads like coal and oil have never caught on in this country.
Distance. Rail freight is only competitive if it’s quicker. All the main freight terminals in the UK are pretty much within a day’s drive of the main industrial areas, which means that direct delivery by road is always going to be more cost-effective than doing the main journey by rail and trans-shipping at a railhead for the final few miles.
Loading gauge. The British railway network is not, never has been and will never be capable of handling the double-deck container wagons which make American and European rail journeys more cost-effective. It can’t even cope with putting the whole ■■■■ lorry on the train like the Channel Tunnel does.
I’d also love to see the first driverless lorry that can cope with a Welsh farmyard!
Sidevalve:
I’d also love to see the first driverless lorry that can cope with a Welsh farmyard!
Exactly! Have you ever noticed, everytime they show self driving cars and occasionally trucks, it’s on nice long wide bits of road with very little chance of anything jumping out in front of you, falling trees, uneven surfaces or god-forbid caravans and Nissan Micra’s?
I follow the tech stuff quite a lot mostly due to a previous job, and one of the biggest comparisons I see mentioned with self-driving cars and of course trucks is the airline industry. They’ve had planes that can basically fly themselves for many many years - some do even land themselves, but no airline or airplane maker in the world has ever suggested taking the pilots out of the equation.
The only way I can actually see a genuine self-driving vehicle coming into mass production is in a very slow process whereby computers assist us, little bit by little bit. Examples include:
A car or truck that can help out with the drive is possible although 2020 is probably realistically pushing it, but once it gets off a nice straight road, just like the Google cars it hands back to the driver for the complicated bits. Maybe 2100 we’ll see real self-driving trucks.
The accidents that the current self driving cars are being involved in is because they follow the rules to the letter rather than the unwritten rules which drivers have become accustomed to and ultimately end up in collisions.
An example would be a motorway sliproad. Its an unwritten rule that someone in L1 moves over to L2 if its safe to let someone on a sliproad join. A self driving car in L1 doesn’t know about this unwritten rule but it does know that both the law and Highway Code state the dashed line at the end of the sliproad is a give way and that vehicles joining the motorway must give way to those already on it. So self driving car doesn’t move over and car joining motorway expecting it to has a collision with it.
trevHCS:
Sidevalve:
I’d also love to see the first driverless lorry that can cope with a Welsh farmyard!Exactly! Have you ever noticed, everytime they show self driving cars and occasionally trucks, it’s on nice long wide bits of road with very little chance of anything jumping out in front of you, falling trees, uneven surfaces or god-forbid caravans and Nissan Micra’s?
I follow the tech stuff quite a lot mostly due to a previous job, and one of the biggest comparisons I see mentioned with self-driving cars and of course trucks is the airline industry. They’ve had planes that can basically fly themselves for many many years - some do even land themselves, but no airline or airplane maker in the world has ever suggested taking the pilots out of the equation.
The only way I can actually see a genuine self-driving vehicle coming into mass production is in a very slow process whereby computers assist us, little bit by little bit. Examples include:
- Adaptive cruise control
- Auto emergency stop (if a vehicle stops in front of the car / truck)
- The system which spots cyclists coming down the side of the truck.
…etc.A car or truck that can help out with the drive is possible although 2020 is probably realistically pushing it, but once it gets off a nice straight road, just like the Google cars it hands back to the driver for the complicated bits. Maybe 2100 we’ll see real self-driving trucks.
Right on the money, my lad and my nephew are in their early thirties, if they want to i have no doubt they can stay in control of, with increasing electronic assistance (which will be a blessing and a PITA in equal measure) though probably a lot bigger and heavier than current for scale of economy, some form of road transport for the rest of their working lives.
i think the general public will also need some time to come around to the idea of trucks driving down the road without a driver to take over if things go wrong, and that isn’t going to happen overnight, even if the technology reliably exists in 10 years…
How do these emergency braking systems cope with car drivers divebombing junctions? One second the road in front is clear, the next second there’s a car 10 feet in front. Do they slam on the brakes, or are they clever enough not to?
You can programme a computer to react a million different ways to a million different scenarios. What you can’t do however is to programme one to react in the right way in an unexpected scenario. For that reason alone you will never see driverless lorries on “normal” roads, they would perhaps work on segregated highways.
Needadvice:
How do these emergency braking systems cope with car drivers divebombing junctions? One second the road in front is clear, the next second there’s a car 10 feet in front. Do they slam on the brakes, or are they clever enough not to?
Depends. On the system in the DAF CFs I drive if it detects the car is going faster than you it does nothing. If it detects its going the same speed/slower it’ll whack on the brakes. I’m not sure if there has been a software update since they bought them a year ago but they certainly don’t seem to whack the brakes on in certain scenarios anywhere near as much as they used to especially when the vehicle in front of you brakes to do something like enter a petrol station like the Shell one on the A66 near Scotch Corner. They used to slam all on even though the car would be clear by the time you got there and now they don’t even lift off.
That’s what I wondered - trouble is, a lot of these dive bombers have little relative forward motion, but a lot of relative sideways - could easily cause an accident if they go into full braking (as well as spill the drivers coffee!)