3 technologies transforming truck driving
A look under the hood on self-driving trucks.
A ballooning driver shortage and skyrocketing freight rates have contributed to a tumultuous start to the year for the trucking industry. So much so that big-name consumer goods companies like General Mills and Hormel are now talking about price hikes looming in the second half of 2018.
“U.S. truck fleets have not kept pace with growing demand for different reasons,” according to a recent Reuters article. Namely, new rules for mandatory Electronic Logging Devices to track driver activity and a “chronic shortage of people willing to drive trucks for the wages offered.”
As a result, technology in many forms has emerged as a potential antidote. When it comes to recruiting and retaining drivers, for instance, tools like LoadDocs’ are designed to digitize time-consuming paperwork and help drivers get paid faster.
At the same time, a range of hardware and software offerings hold promise to change the day-to-day mechanics of truck driving. Automation tends to dominate the conversation, but a widening array of advanced driving technologies are surfacing as carriers look to increase efficiency and margins.
Here are three advanced driving technologies that stand to transform how trucks handle the road:
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Sure, you’ve heard about the debate over how soon the world might — or might not — see fully self-driving trucks. Behind the autonomous driving conversation, however, is the question of how artificial intelligence, or AI, will impact the logistics sector.
Uber, Embark and Google-offshoot Waymo are among the front runners using elaborate systems to map, predict and control vehicles in real time. As it stands, most of these technologies are employed to augment human drivers, usually as a matter of safety and efficiency.
Longer term, though, automotive technology supplier Nvidia notes that AI could give vehicles, “the power to see, think, and learn, so they can navigate.”
Long hauls and highways are two of the primary use cases tech providers are eying to pilot artificial intelligence systems that could allow drivers to adopt a more passive role, potentially not counting against limited Hours of Service.
As the team at Waymo has noted, though, there’s a steep learning curve to go from passenger cars to heavy-duty trucks.
“The principles are the same, but things like braking, turning, and blind spots are different with a fully-loaded truck and trailer,” the company wrote in a Medium post introducing a recent Atlanta freight pilot.
2. Remote Driving
With complete truck automation still politically controversial and technologically uncertain, tech providers are already thinking about tools to help bridge the gap. Remote driving, where human controllers would steer trucks through situations software can’t yet handle solo, like docking at the end of a route, is one such tool.
“Instead of removing humans from the driving experience entirely, we’re keeping the humans in, virtually,” explains the team behind Scotty Labs, which recently raised $6 million for it’s remote-controlled truck technology.
Starsky Robotics, meanwhile, is testing its fully-autonomous trucks in Florida, using human operators to remotely steer the first- and last-mile legs of a journey.
Phantom Auto leaves the door for human control open wider, noting that its teleoperation systems are offered on-demand for an autonomous vehicle, “when it encounters a scenario which it cannot handle.”
3. Platooning
Linking trucks with other trucks to help increase route efficiency is at the core of the “platooning” concept gaining ground in the freight industry.
Fuel and emissions savings are the two main value propositions for Peleton Technology, which allows drivers to be matched with other drivers either in advance of a trip or once on the road. With drivers retaining control of trucks, the idea is that vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology can ensure that nearby trucks are in sync, increasing trip efficiency.
“They accelerate and brake together and can safely operate at closer distances to form a platoon,” the Peleton website explains.
Across the Atlantic, providers participating since 2016 in the European Truck Platooning Challenge have been working to encourage adoption of platooning in the European Union. As the group explains, the goal is to over time, “enable the market introduction of automated trucks through a coordinated approach.”
