Big Rigs Go High Tech 288
pottercw writes "Trucking may not seem like a high-tech industry to the casual observer, but major carriers are starting to adopt an array of emerging technologies to combat rising fuel costs, tighter regulation and fierce competition. The technologies include systems that monitor and communicate vehicle conditions and performance, enhanced GPSs that keep tabs on tractors and trailers, and safety systems which issue warnings or even take action to help drivers avoid an accident — all working in real time. Computerworld has a cool mouseover diagram highlighting some of the gadgets we're beginning to see on high-tech trucks."
You cannot let this article stay posted! (Score:5, Funny)
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Time for Railroads to make a comeback (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Time for Railroads to make a comeback (Score:5, Insightful)
Transporting 250lbs of flesh and 50lbs of luggage doesn't really show a train's ability to pull cargo cheaply since that 300lbs of cargo needs to be in a multi-ton box car with many niceties (food, water, sleeping area, toilet, possibly shower).
Try comparing costs of carrying 100s of tons of cargo (such as grain, oil, furniture, vehicles) where the overhead of the train is a smaller percentage.
Try even comparing the cost to the environment: both the air (burned fuel) and, for comparing with "Big Rigs" (to stay loosely on topic) the damage caused to the roadways (vs damage caused to railways) for the same load.
I've been hoping for more railways for years...
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i've been searching for something to back up this theory - i heard it several years ago, but cannot find anything concrete.
Re:Time for Railroads to make a comeback (Score:4, Interesting)
I live a few miles from the Ford and Chevy plants here in Cleveland. They both have multiple tracks going directly into each factory, pumping out fully loaded trains full of parts, probably driving off to other plants for assembly or further production. I would hazard a guess that they have no problem with scheduling the logistics, and I bet it is far cheaper and more efficient than trucking it out there.
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I used to work at a lumberyard in Dayton, Ohio that had a rail spur for deliveries of building supplies. The train did stop just for them. It would stop, cut out the two or three cars for them, then continue on. They paid for the spur to be installed, leased some rail equipment (a yard dog to maneuv
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However, lacking this, railway transport means road transport to the train station, load transfer to boxcars, railway transport (which might take a while, as passenger trains have priority over cargo), then load transfer to trucks at the destination, and finally transport to destination.
As long as your transport can take a long way on the road, and
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They do use the rail system. Don't you see trains with rows and rows of Semi-trailers on the back? Then they take them and put them on trucks to go to their particular location.
How ever sometimes people need it there faster then the trains can handle (Being trains are only effecent in delivering bulk products) dilivering small amounts like one tractor full would be much cheaper and quicker and ef
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The Railroads never left.
The rails DID leave, because funding for rails was cut in favor of spending it on the federal highway system as a system of corporate welfare designed to benefit the auto companies. Don't let history get in the way of a good argument, though.
Obviously we still have rail, for purposes that cannot reasonably be served by truck, like feeding major concrete plants raw material or, ironically, getting materials into and cars out of automobile manufacturing plants. Oh, the humanity.
As well we have a polital problem with rails is that noone wants them in their back yard or comunity
And you have a spelling p
Who says truckies are stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people who have only ever driven cars fail to appreciate that driving heavy trucks is actually quite a demanding job, and not one for dummies. Those rigs are expensive, and no factor that saves fuel or wear and tear can be neglected. It may be popular to label truckies as ignorant yokels, but it is a fact that they need to be quite technically astute. For instance, tyre wear alone is a huge factor when you consider the cost of replacing over 40 tyres on a multi-combination rig.
As an aside, this reminds me of one time back in my trucking days, some idiot tried to steal my rig. He might have thought he was a shit-hot car driver, but couldn't even muster the coordination required to get the crash box into gear. He was still struggling with it when the police arrived...
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Obviously you are not a fan of The Simpsons.
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Professional truckers are quite capable and skilled people, but many "truckers" aren't professional.
I don't assume that just because someone passed a quickie driving course and got a license that they have a clue. (Lurk on a few towing forums if you want to see how much business "truckers" generate for towmen recovering the results of their mistakes!).
Of course
Big Red (Score:5, Funny)
If only it could have saved poor Red from beef poisoning at Sirloin A Lot, sadly that feature was still in beta.
-Matt
viva Homer!
Re:Big Red (Score:5, Informative)
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Well.....at least the hookers, not everyone does drugs.
Re:Big Red (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Big Red (Score:5, Funny)
I'm heading west, and I'm looking for a whore!
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Similarly, lane departure warning doesn't work today when you'd really like it too, like when it's raining very heavily and it's hard to see the stripes on the road.
Re:Big Red (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not implying anything, oh no, definitely not.
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Re:Big Red (Score:4, Insightful)
Summary Behind the Times (Score:4, Informative)
Before Qualcomm made it big with CDMA, their first major product was a satellite based truck tracking/logistics systems (called OMNITrack). It came out, oh, in 1985 or thereabouts.
Amazing that the summary said we're just now seeing high tech stuff appear in the world of trucking... pfft.
Of course, I only knew about that since I went to college at UC San Diego, and Qualcomm was the local high tech company that hired a huge number of our engineering graduates.
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This predates graphical GPS navigation systems, but efforts had been made in this direction t
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Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
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"I play meat."
"You play meat?"
"That's sick man, sick!"
Spielberg's finest hour.
Huge costs lead to early adoption (Score:5, Insightful)
Communications (CB radios and trunked radio) have always been associated with truckers.
Big rigs were also the first to use significant engine management. J1939 (one of first uses of CAN) was originally done for big rigs.
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A year or two ago..for fun (and for talking to other car club members when on a run), I got a CB radio and put it in the car. It is fun on the odd long trip I take...to talk with the truckers, and
Very true (Score:5, Interesting)
But back then fuel was relatively cheap and the only modifications we had on our engines were a governor that restricted top speed (mine was annoyingly set at 68). Now I hardly recognise the cab of a modern truck
Oh, and laminated maps. That was the top technology for finding my way around Houston.
Rig emmissions are very low (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the emissions associated with the delivery of a new TV, most of it is in the last leg from the store to the buyer's home. Trucking 500 TVs across the state using a big rig produces less emissions per TV than that last ride home.
Re:Rig emmissions are very low (Score:5, Insightful)
Balance that (Score:2, Insightful)
Rail sure is way better where it can be used.
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Rails take up much less space, there's no rubber pollution from tyres, and no emissions if you use electricity. There's almost certainly less oil dripped onto the ground. And less accidents.
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So where's the electricity coming from then? There may be no emissions *from the train*, but at some point in the chain, emissions have been made generating the electricity that is powering it.
Unless of course it's entirely solar/wind powered, but somehow I doubt that's the case.
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But that requires very precise dispatching and monitoring, so only the biggest companies with the best inventory systems can handle. Hopefully with technology getting cheaper more companies will do this and more geeks will get jobs in the freight industry running those systems.
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Trucks can only compete with rail for long haul freight services in the US because much of the nation's rail infrastructure was ripped up over the la
Incorrect and impractical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Emmisions. (Score:5, Informative)
My beef with the EPA and the government is how they handled the enforcement of the 2007 emissions law. In Europe they have the Euro emissions standard for diesel engines and they are currently at Euro 5. But that does not mean that truck makers must only offer Euro 5 engines to its customers. See the EU was smart and rather then force everyone to switch they said you can still buy Euro 4 and 3 engines but you pay higher registration fees and I believe even higher road usage taxes (can anyone clarify?) for the Euro 3 and 4 engines.
In the USA the EPA forced all the engine makers and truck makers to only offer 2007 emissions rated engines in all trucks made after October 2007. Now the 2007 rated engines add another six to eight thousand dollars to a truck so guess what happened? Thats right, in 2006 trucking companies scrambled to purchase pre-2007 trucks not only because they were cheaper but the reliability of 2007 engines was unknown and untrusted. So now you have plenty of 2006 sales but sales were dead in 2007 threatening truck makers here in the states. If the EPA did what the EU did they would have eased the pain in transitioning and we would have more cleaner trucks on the road.
Now just wait till EPA 2010 when we will most likely combine the 2007 DPF and EGR systems with a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system. Also Europe will combine a DPF system with their Euro 5 SCR/EGR system for Euro 6 emissions. At that point diesel engines will be cleaner than gasoline engines.
fuel costs still not high enough priority (Score:4, Insightful)
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Automotive companies didn't buy up rail carriers.
We built this great transportation system (highways) that allowed people to live everywhere and get goods from anywhere. Railroads couldn't keep up. Trucks are more useful. It will take far greater prices and much time to change this
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Yes, but the interstate highway system is only cheaper than railroads for most goods because it is so heavily subsidized by the federal and state governments.
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is a completely different statement from
"You know how much long haul trucking there is in the States?"
The addendum "Most of these could be moved to rail which is much more energy efficient" only applies to one.
A 100 car freight train is far less labor intensive than 100 semis.
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Companies care about cost and time. If it were cheaper and faster to ship via rail they would. It isn't, so they don't. Except for large bulky shipments.
"I agree that you would still need trucks for local and short deliveries, but so much of the industry is long haul or multi-state trucking."
And you would have the same amount of drivers. Except that you can pay the local ones less.... Trucks are far more convenient than rail l
Re:fuel costs still not high enough priority (Score:5, Informative)
Aero? Peterbilt 378, Kenworth T2000, International Prostar, Freightliner Century/Colombia/Cascadia, Mack Vision. And more are to follow.
It'd be so easy to make a few small aerodynamic changes to the trailers. That's seriously low hanging fruit, and it's been almost entirely ignored.
Aero Trailers are not always feasible in the eyes of the trucking industry for one simple reason: weight. Most tractors today have proper wind deflectors on top to allow to the air to deflect around the trailer reducing drag. Side skirts have been tried since the 70's but did not yield enough of an increase in fuel savings to warrant their cost or added weight.
We'd also see lighter trailers with more aluminum and composite carbon fiber in them
Trailers are already as light as possible and are full of composite materials and aluminum, you just haven't bothered to look. Aluminum is popular in flatbed trailers that can be upward of 100% aluminum and many trailers are of a mixed construction of both aluminum and steel. Aluminum frames used to be popular in trucks of the 70's. But after a few years of running on roads that are salted in the winter, everyone learned real fast that aluminum was a poor material for frames. Carbon fiber isn't a material your going to find on a truck as it has no desirable properties other then low weight.
more efficient engines
Diesel engines have for years been very efficient. The average today is about 6-6.5 MPG for tractor trailers. Older diesels that were mechanical could also yield similar numbers but were very dirty (but fun and simple to maintain and work on). EPA 2007 and the looming EPA 2010 has created a whole new school of diesel design and many companies are about to or are going to release some real seriously high tech engines. Compacted graphite iron, turbo compounding, ingenious heat management, acoustic tuning, over head cams and integrated engine brakes is whats in the mix. International's MaXXForce, Detroit Diesel's DD15, and Paccar's MX engine are some of the most technologically advanced engines out there. They are ready to be deployed soon here in the USA and will meet EPA 2010 emissions which will make gasoline engine look filthy.
and better tires.
Ever hear of super singles? They are wide base tires that replace the dual tires found on both drive and trailer axles. They have less friction than a set of dual tires and can bring about a noticeable and beneficial savings in fuel economy. They are also lighter which allows the truck to carry more fright which increases efficiency. Adoption has been pretty good but safety is a bit of a concern as with duals if one tire blows the other can support the weight of the axle so the truck can be safely stopped. Cost is also an issue and they aren't useful outside of LTL, long haul and bulk haul. Vocational work still demands dual tires for the high weights and abuse involved.
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Now I need to get back to work, I've been spending over 100% of my time on Slashdot.
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Re:fuel costs still not high enough priority (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't new (Score:3, Informative)
Most of this stuff has been on trucks for ten years. Eaton's VORAD anti-collision radar goes back further than that. But now, everybody with more than one rig has some kind of tracking system.
Anti-collision (Score:2)
Problem?
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"Bridge out" error. (R)etry, (A)bort, (I)gnore?
Thanks but I'd rather have my shipments delivered by rickshaw.
What will the future bring? (Score:5, Funny)
Train (Score:2)
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But it's not as if rail isn't already in the middle of a comeback and spending a billion dollars a year or so on new infrastructure. (Freight, that is, of cou
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Trucking technology is extremely sophisticated (Score:5, Insightful)
While we are at it, a lot of people might be surprised how sophisticated trains and train operations are - modern locomotives were the prototypes of Prius' and othe hybrids, complete with regenerative braking.
Brett
GPS (Score:3, Funny)
Will it stop directing them through tiny villages [slashdot.org] with roads too narrow to cope?
Truckers invented the Internet! (Score:3, Insightful)
In case your memory is short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaammaHevT0
This really isn't that new... (Score:5, Interesting)
The tablet ran a program designed by a sub-contractor that allowed the trucker to do things like checklists, fuel management, figure his trip earnings, report emergencies, etc.
One of J.B. Hunts driving (heh) reasons was that after a driver delivered his load, he might spend 30 minutes thumbing the same quarter into a payphone trying to call the dispatcher. With this system, he could send a communique that he was done, and the system would turn around with new orders in less than 2 minutes.
One of the other neat things was the Qualcomm dish could do triangulation that was accurate to a few hundred yards. At least twice I know of, rigs were stolen and recovered because of the satellite tracking.
Now the little antenna packages are ubiquitous on trucks. Look behind the air dam on the roof, or the back of the cab, and you'll see a white dome that's about 12" in diameter, and 10" tall. Odds are that's a Qualcomm satellite link.
The tablet system was pretty neat, too. It was an extremely dense PCB at the time, 16 layers. It supported the original Sundisk (before they became Sandisk) 2.5MB flash drives, touch screen, used Peltier devices to allow operation in extreme temperatures, had RS-232, RS-422, infrared, keyboard & mouse port, expansion connectors, LCD controller, all that stuff, in an aluminum frame with this heavy duty rubber covering over it.
The holster interfaced to the trucks wiring harness and could pick off speed (we were pre-GPS), RPM, voltage, stuff like that. Our group didn't handle the holster, so I only know vague details about it, but I do know that while they were considered some of the vehicle data busses for the future, they interfaced the old-fashioned way.
Most of the drivers were moderately receptive to the system, since it sped up their turn-around time, which meant more money. However, since it could tattle on exceeding maximum allowed drive time, over-revving, and of course speeding, there were some drivers that had real problems with it.
Incidentally, at that point in time, J.B. Hunt was a VERY large customer of IBM main frames. For the previous 7 years, they upgraded every year to IBMs newest mainframe offerings. Their big data center was somewhere in the Mid-west, I believe. With their route planning, logistics management, service records system, dispatch system and everything else, they burned a lot of CPU cycles.
Somewhere in my basement, I have one of the docking holsters and the tablet computer, and as of about a year ago, it powered up and booted into DOS.
J.B. Hunt and IBM learned an important lesson from this, too: Don't let the driver be able to see the tablet. Before they started positioning them where the driver couldn't read it while in motion, at least one accident occurred because of fixation.
While new technologies have brought more to the table, what the system offered 17 years ago isn't all that drastically different. Satellite is still the best choice, since cell phone coverage is not 100% pervasive.
The project name was Road Rider. Naturally, we called it Road Kill internally
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This is the same reason Volkswagens and Audis have the OBD-II connector positioned so it is accessible from the back seat, and not under the dash, where most cars position it. US regulations don't help though, as they require it to be within three feet of the d
Freight prices have not gone up in years (Score:5, Insightful)
Just the other day, I had a competing trucking company come in and quote out the job. Their quote was... $1050.
The price of diesel fuel has quadrupled in this time.
I can not believe that technology is making the difference here. I think truckers are getting screwed.
I know there were some threats of a trucking strike a month or two ago that came to nothing. I would not be surprised to see this happen, and if it did, the country would be brought to its knees.
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registrations and regulation costs + wages is the big ticket items. all things considered fuel is still very cheap when you look at just how much work it does.
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Wages used to be the #1 expense. Diesel also used to be $1.30 a gallon three or four years ago.
The grandparent poster is right - it's all a bidding game, and if you try to raise your rates, someone else will do it cheaper. Rates will increase, but probably not until a lot of the little guys are out of business. I know my company is struggling.
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Or you were getting screwed 4 years ago.
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But does it have... (Score:2)
Pretty old tech (Score:2)
You now have systems where you have one truck with a driver is followed by several driverless trucks. You also can have automatic parking / reversing.
I can't find any links at the moment but I've seen them demo'd at tradeshows.
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You now have systems where you have one truck with a driver is followed by several driverless trucks. You also can have automatic parking / reversing.
Driverless trucks? That won't make production, at least on the American interstate system. It would work fine if it wasn't for all the cars on the road. My bet is that an automated driving system wouldn't make a thousand mile trip before it ran someone off the road.
Automatic backing sounds interesting though. There's a lot of places that are difficult at best to back up to (grocery and department stores are in general really bad about that - blind side backing with no space) and it'd be interesting to
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Truckers not High Tech??? (Score:2, Informative)
He had a Built in computer with LCD in the sleeper.
High Speed Internet
A HIdeaway full shower.
A mini drink fridge.
A GPS System
Hands Free Cell hooked up to his stereo
2 Reverse Ca
Not everyone thinks this is a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked for a large (LARGE) national trucking corporation for seven years in their IT department. Occasionally, I'd go to the terminals to talk with dispatchers / drivers to see how IT could make their jobs easier or faster. What I heard a lot about was how much they hated the invisible boss watching over their shoulder, monitoring every little detail of their workday and questioning them about anything that wasn't according to the way the corporation wanted it to be. "Why did you stop at the rest area off of 101 for 15 minutes at 12:33 PM on August 3?" "I needed to take a leak" "It shouldn't have taken you 15 minutes to take a leak" - and you can imagine where it goes from there.
Does all this monitoring and control increase efficiency and reduce costs? That's open to debate; while it may cut out some unscheduled downtime, it also cuts out some unscheduled overtime and / or supra-legal speeds. Net effect at the bottom line? Who knows, but it's mighty close to a wash. Where the real difference is - the drivers attitude about their job. They used to be "captain of their ship", piloting their load of valuable cargo to its destination - using the routes and methods that their years of experience had shown to be best. Now they're just cogs in the machine; follow the route you're given, operate the tractor according to corporate policy - and we're going to monitor you carefully to make sure you do - and punish you for every transgression. How can you take pride in your job under those conditions? Very dehumanizing and it just gets worse year after year. Each year the corporate overlords refine their expectations of what it takes to operate a truck at maximum efficiency.
Ultimately, what the corporation is thinking about is how much they pay those drivers - and how they could reduce that expense. Refining the task of "drive a truck" to the point where it's just a matter of following instructions is the first step. Once they've achieved that, there'll be no more need for those highly experienced drivers - someone with a new commercial license could do the same job at about one third the salary. This would cut those labor expenses and allow the corporation to post increased profits.
But how would you feel about no longer being able to assume that those big trucks are being driven by professional drivers. How would you feel to know that 80,000 pounds of freight in the lane next to you is being driven by a dropout that's talking on his cell phone?
This isn't idle speculation - this is the way things have been going for quite a few years now. All that's changed is the price of fuel; as that climbs, the transportation companies are faced with a hard choice - cut expenses to compensate or raise their rates. Raising the rates enough to cover the new improved cost of fuel would chase away a substantial number of customers so the pressure is on to cut labor expenses. After numerous reorganizations and cuts it's now the drivers turn on the hot seat. Next time you see one on the road, give him a smile and a wave. Those guys work long hours for not a lot of money and do all they can to keep everyone around them on the roads safe. Everything you buy - EVERYTHING - got to you in the back of a big rig. Think about the people who have dedicated their lives to making sure your store has an adequate supply of canned beer and what's being done to them in the name of "increased efficiency" and tip your hat; these guys deserve your gratitude.
Who else read it like this? (Score:2)
blah blah blah
Re:Fuel Efficiency (Score:5, Interesting)
For generations, moving goods around has been treated as nothing but a small marginal cost. This means we have been able to take for granted the origin of goods.
Of course the fact is, margins still allow us to take it for granted, and they still would, even with a doubling of the current prices of fuel. Fuel does not yet dominate the cost of transportation, and the cost of transportation does not yet dominate the the cost of agricultural commodities.
But, don't listen to me. Listen to the voices that really want you to be angry about fuel prices. Maybe there really is some conspiracy driving up the prices (while staying hidden within the competitive, transparent marketplace where the value is established, and where the prices can only be explained by investor behavior, since the only other factors of supply, demand, and reserves do not explain it.)
Oh, that's scarier than any boogeyman can possibly be: what if the market really does bear $136/bbl crude, without any nefarious or criminal interference in the market?
Well, it's the only commodity that has a scoreboard on every corner, and the only one where people honestly expect me to get upset about it, to make it a priority.
Tell you what: When fuel reaches 1% of my annual budget, I'll give it a line item. When fuel reaches a level that it is a significant marginal cost in delivering goods to retail marketplaces, I'll buy locally produced goods. Local economy will be happy.
If you have experience in commodities or degrees in economics, you might be able to persade me.
I've been called clueless for my opinions. I do happen to know a thing or two about the transportation business, particularly trucking, particularly in the ag sector.
Re:Fuel Efficiency (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know about the guy who posted the original message, but many people in cities don't even own cars. I own a car, but I only use it when I want to move furniture or buy a lot of groceries... my gas expenditure is nowhere near 1%.
1% is low for the suburbanite / rural folk, but not for the urbanite.
Re:Fuel Efficiency (Score:5, Informative)
My city is 550 square miles, not counting the suburbs (around 9000 square miles, including the full metropolitan area), and has around 2000 people per square mile. Compare to New York city, with 300 or so square miles, with TWICE the population (27,282 per square mile, more and an order of magnitude larger).
Most cities in the west are huge sprawling behemoths. Even with public transportation, it still would add around an hour to the average commute, or more. Sadly, Phoenix doesn't even really have that. Our bus service is spotty, infrequent, and unreliable, and barely covers most of the central part of the city, much less the outskirts.
We also have the same problems as other cities, the closer to the city center (thus jobs) you are, you either have to cope with high prices, or nasty ghetto. The only middle-class compromise is to move further and further out, thus increasing trip times, and eliminated public transit as a viable, and timely option. Statistically, only 3% of people in Pheonix use public transit to commute, while 72% drive their own cars to work.
There is much more to the US than the east coast.
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I personally live in a dense east-coast US metropolis that happens to have the most expensive mass transit in the US, and found a good job that happens to be in the burbs. I can spend almost ten bucks a *day* if I commute by
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Do you live a LONG way from work? Do you drive something that gets bad gas mileage?
I'm not sure the distance to work..but, with not much traffic except in one area..t
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fuel isn't 1% of your budget? I'm impressed. If you have to fill up your tank once a week, then you're spending at least $40. This is a weekly income of $4K, or over $200K/annually.
I consider myself a conservative driver. I hate cars and I hate traffic, but between my wife & I, fuel costs are far above 1% and even approaching 5%.
I only wish I had the money to where less than one percent was for gas. In my case, it's almost ten percent, and that's with a car that gets better than 30 mpg city (a '96 Saturn--1.9L I-4 w/5 a speed gearbox). Granted, I don't make much money, but unless you get obscene gas mileage, you'd have to pull down six digits to spend less than one percent of that on gas.
I'd guess that the vast majority of households are at least 5 percent of income to fuel. Figure that based on average yearly fuel costs on the
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Re:Fuel Efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
Transportation is already factored into about 24% of the economy. From the manufacture of cars, planes, etc., to the cost of moving people and goods, fuel for police cars and fire trucks, fuel for the construction equipment that paves the roads, removes the snow, delivers mail and packages, runs the trucks that install and maintain your internet access, etc. So, unless you're not paying taxes, not buying anything, not eating, never sending or receiving mail, or surfing the net, you're already paying more than 1% of your income, either directly or indirectly, in diesel and gasoline.
I don't understand. (Score:3, Insightful)
How can locally produced goods compete with the shipped in versions? Raw materials have to be shipped in, even in agriculture where fertilizer and fuel are real costs. My impression was that goods from China were inexpensive because they had a large supply of very cheap and poorly treated labor. Just about everyone now uses material from there if they bother making anything. What is left of US and Western manufacturing? If you know so much about Ag shipping, can you tell me why so much cheap food at th
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This doesn't apply to everything of course, and there are many industries where other factors are more important (labour cost, power supply, weather, regulations,
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When fuel reaches 1% of my annual budget, I'll give it a line item.
I just graduated from high school yesterday. I don't exactly make bank, but it's not minimum wage by a longshot. However, just in fuel to get to school, work, and home, i was spending up to 40% of my income. Even if I were just going to work, it would be nearly 30% of my income.
I think the price of fuel hits harder for those in the lower classes, but I'm not
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Good for you, to be able to manage 1%. Unfortunately, for most Americans, it's closer to 10%, if not higher, and even if we can cut out all extraneous driving, going to work is getting less and less profitable due to the increased costs of going. I respectfully disagree with your position that our sharply rising fuel costs are not going to increase the costs of transported goods, but even if that is the case, the supply of money people have to
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Re:I'm a believer in the railroads. (Score:5, Informative)
Regrooved tires are dangerous in general, and there's no benefit to using them. It costs a lot more to have a tire truck come out than to just buy a retread (not regroove) tire and have it done at a shop. You can't use retreads on the steering axle, and many trucking companies don't use them on the drive axles. Trailers are a different thing - you can go cheap on trailer tires because if one blows out, you can still go down the road for a bit. The other seven are adequate for getting you to the nearest tire shop.
Now as far as the "dirty and unsafe" part - that doesn't describe the modern trucking industry. Most trucks on the road are less than five years old, with hardly any older than ten. Emissions have been lowered dramatically compared to the old days, and the new fuels are almost sulphur-free. The black stuff you see coming from the stacks? That's soot - unburned carbon. It's not particularly dangerous, although it can contribute to smog. You only see that when the engine is doing something dramatic, like changing gears or taking off. Most of the time a truck is in motion, the engine is working as efficiently as possible and minimizing unburned fuels.
Most trucks are moving towards having small "lawnmower" engines called APUs (axillary power units) that power the heat/AC system and provide electricity when the truck would normally be idling. I don't have one, but hopefully I will when the lease runs out on my truck. (You have to idle or have one of these APUs in inclement weather - a trucker needs to be fully rested to drive, and that's hard when you're in a truck in the middle of the desert during the summer with no A/C. Not that California cares.)
Drivers have strict rules they have to follow regarding hours of service and inspections, and while every driver breaks the rules from time to time, you develop a sense of when you need to get off the road. A wreck can destroy your career, and equipment failure can delay your load (and your paycheck). DOT inspects trucks randomly, and they're pretty thorough. Safety is a huge concern for truckers as well as trucking companies, since accidents translate to lost money. It's not worth pushing your drivers past the rules, since DOT can audit you at any time and any accident can turn into a million dollar lawsuit.
Bear in mind this article is talking about the port of Los Angeles, which just recently banned owner-operators and trucks more than a few years old. California is a very truck-unfriendly state in general and I wouldn't be surprised if this article you pointed out was just propaganda pointing out the worst case.
Re: (Score:2)
The strange thing is that most truck tread carcasses I see appear to have plenty of tread on them. My guess is that, since rubber ages, it's the underlying rubber, and not the tread, that's unsafe. Putting a new tread on a degraded tire is like using masking tape to hold on an outisde mirror.
Re:inefficiency of driving too fast (Score:5, Informative)
Most trucking companies with their own trucks have regulators in them with limit the speed to California highway spec for semis(I think 55). Swift is the biggest one I can think of that does this. These companies generally charge per-hour or trip, and not per hour, which also minimizes speed. They also have pretty good safety enforcement, and trip monitoring. The ones to worry about are the independent contractors. They are paid per mile, or make money based on the speed of their delivery, thus have an incentive to speed, and be reckless. They also have far less safety and maintenance requirements than corporate drivers.
The margins in modern trucking are pretty damn slim, so sometimes people cut corners.
If you want to be afraid, just wait until the foreign trucking provisions of NAFTA come through, and we're flooded with Mexican truckers, driving Mexican trucks, completely immune to American safety, and EPA standards, much less CDL standards.
Most of my "bad trucker" experiences were due to morons in cars acting recklessly. People don't realize that trucks have a MASSIVE stopping distance, miles of blindspots, and the empty trailers REALLY suck. I see so many people change lanes 10ft in front of trucks going 75mph, thinking it is safe. Sometimes I hope that something terrible happens, just so I can feel good about Darwin.
Re:inefficiency of driving too fast (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me second that from a UK perspective.
Since the inclusion of the former Eastern European states into the EU, we have seen a huge [timesonline.co.uk] rise in traffic accidents caused by foreign drivers, especially Eastern Europeans with badly maintained rigs.
Disclaimer - I'm not a trucker, but I regularly do about 40,000 miles a year on the roads, and have never had an accident while moving (been rear-ended twice, but hey, what can you do?).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The speed limit is fine. It is four-wheelers like you who get in the safety margin truckers leave that are the problem.
A good example happened in LA. A trucker was sited for following too close. He fought the ticket, and his defense was that it was impossible to not follow too close because any space he left in front of his truck was immediately filled by a car. He took the judge for a ride and showed him. The case was di