Beyond the Promise of Self-Driving Trucks: Why Drivers Still Matter Most to Our Business

By: Tishampati Dhar — Chief Architect at Lori

Last week I had the privilege of presenting at KiCon, one of the largest global conferences for hardware developers, in Chicago. I presented on the difficulties in importing parts for logistics to Kenya to build custom hardware. For example Kenyan custom charges $50 for the task of opening a parcel to examine the contents and determine duties payable even before charging the duties themselves, this is called Import Declaration Fee. This fee is designed for containers but is applied to DHL parcels as well; making import of parts punitive. There are also no postcodes and street numbers in most parts of Nairobi and the postal service is too under-resourced to deliver to door. Overall the logistics for low volume imports are a nightmare.

I also presented on the difficulties in importing parts for logistics to Kenya to build custom hardware. I discussed my work as Chief Architect at Lori and the unique challenges and features of delivering high quality logistics services in emerging markets from different market segments — from long-haul trucking to last mile FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) delivery. What struck me immediately about some of the responses I got was the hype around self-driving vehicles and excitement around commercial grade trucks in particular — the idea that these trucks are a silver bullet to solve myriad delivery challenges. While the media projects an image that these innovations are imminent and will dominate the roads soon, the reality is that we are a long way off from this dream, especially in Kenya where I’m based at the Lori HQ. The key insight for me, was that at Lori we should stay the course: drivers are and will continue to be one of our most valuable parts of our industry and we must continue investing in them to ensure the safe and efficient delivery of cargo across the African continent.

A conversation with conference participants representing the Uber ATG team got me thinking about the state of self-driving for trucks and its overall application in Kenya. I moved to Kenya from Australia specifically to work on the complicated issues surrounding logistics in haulage, and when I mention to my friends back in Australia what I’m doing, the first question usually is: Are you building self-driving trucks? The answer is a big NO, and I always try to clarify the myriad challenges that require solving. But don’t take it from me, there are a wide range of brilliant engineers and teams working in this space, and I’ve compiled a list of the most serious and active players in the field.

But first for context, here’s a bit about what self-driving trucks (aka autonomous vehicles) are and how they work:

The predominant method for delivering cargo via driver-less trucks is what is known as “Convoy mode” where one driver leads multiple trucks in an actual convoy formation with a predetermined roadway exit strategy.

But most goods move from ships to rail to trucks and beyond; this kind of intermodal transport is the reality of long haul container movement. Everything runs smoothly in principle, until the cargo needs to change modes of transport. These transfer points happen at depots and require expensive equipment. In the world of logistics, this is where bottlenecks occur and these transfer points increase costs, turnaround time and delay cargo delivery.

Convoy mode essentially converts a truck into a train, and this method of consolidation has the potential to avoid costly infrastructure investments and save time. This is especially relevant to Kenya, where building new railroad infrastructure isn’t currently scalable or cost effective. In this case, convoy mode could potentially make the last 1000 km of shipping much more flexible and efficient, as it is the same mode of transport as the final delivery stage (by truck). Here, you could achieve the efficiency of a train on long haul, while reducing complexity and costs as cargo does not have to be moved from one mode to another. The added flexibility of trucks for last mile delivery is very attractive from a cost perspective. It’s an exciting future to consider, but again, we’re a long way from getting there.

Here’s what the major players are up to:

Note: Generally, vehicles are classified as having a 0–5 level of autonomy (see Society of Engineers definition here) and this is important as different companies choose to develop solutions along this scale.

As you can see from the above, none of these efforts are really close to coming to market. Bearing this in mind, it’s much more important for technologists like me to focus on efforts to support drivers in trucks with some level of assistance. At Lori we believe we can effect dramatic change on freight haulage on the African continent by focusing on tools that supports drivers and trucks on the roads today.

Why Drivers Matter So Much:

It’s important to remember and highlight why drivers are so important to our industry and will remain at the center of who we are and what we do. I can’t emphasize enough that we don’t have a business without great drivers who drive safely, are healthy, and well cared for. As a business, we cannot afford not to make drivers a priority, even with all of the cool technology we are building. The people factor is just as much a part of our success as anything else we do.

I always remind people: humans have been evolving for millions of years, and we haven’t been driving for long, we’re designed to perceive and sense things around us. With the introduction of trucks, we’ve introduced (quite literally) blind spots. Tech will help us take care of these blind spots, but people aren’t actually exiting the equation anytime soon. If anything, we should shift how we talk about this subject to focus on highly assisted driving and not “autonomous vehicles.”

Here are some of the top reasons why drivers are so important right now and can’t simply be replaced or their jobs can’t be totally automated in our line of work:

1. Drivers tell us things sensors can’t: Often times we need a lot of contextual information about dependencies along the overall journey for things that are not digitized or automated: shifting arrival times at destinations timing of arrivals can be unpredictable, availability of fuel at various petrol stations, etc.
2. Border crossings: Most import goods moving by road to Kampala and Uganda for example, pass through the port of Mombasa and have to cross an international border to get to Jinja. Border crossings can be unpredictable and involve multitude driver interactions. Trucks can’t do paperwork and collect stamps on documents.
3. Infrastructure is still a challenge (but getting better!): Road conditions can change drastically, and daily. Roads become impassable with rain and conditions can rapidly deteriorate without speedy updates to guidance systems.
4. Drivers solve problems beyond current technological capabilities: Sometimes things break and trucks stop… and drivers are famously resourceful problem solvers. They are able to troubleshoot along the road to get going again. And remember: the more advanced your tech gets, the harder and more costly maintenance becomes.
5. Routes themselves are unpredictable: Construction may not be announced, alternative routes may be available that include offloading, and they may not be mapped again, enter the genius problem solver.

This is all to say that at Lori, #welovedrivers and take a lot of pride in supporting them along the road.

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Tishampati Dhar is the Chief Architect at Lori, where he guides development of new technology products for our in-house dev team. Tish is an expert at building software for large-scale data processing particularly satellite and airborne sensor data. He has been awarded innovation and commercialization award for building high resolution 3D city capture product ( which will become relevant in the future of self-driving) and has worked for various space agencies including NASA, scientific research organizations and in commercial research. Tisham originally grew up in Kenya and left for his studies, eventually returning to work on some of the biggest opportunities to transform the market. Tish is a regular speaker at open-source technology conferences addressing the intersection of software design and hardware design.