A new study out of the University of Michigan shows that such a system could replace about 90 percent of human driving in long-haul trucking.
"When we talked to truck drivers, literally every one said, 'Yeah, this part of the job can be automated,'" explained Aniruddh Mohan, a PhD candidate in engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a co-author of the study. "We thought they would be a bit more dubious."There are a few big ifs. The systems would have to figure out a better way to navigate in bad weather. Regulators in a lot of states haven't cleared the way for robot rigs. The infrastructure to consider is the transfer stations where the cargo would pass from the analog to the algorithms. The study shows that if trucking companies focused on America's Sun Belt, they could easily offset 10% of human driving. Half of the country's trucking hours could go autonomously if they deployed the robots nationwide.
According to the American Trucking Associations, the industry is short about 61,000 drivers.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
