Self-Driving Big Rigs Become a Reality 228
drinkypoo writes: We've been discussing the importance of automating over-the-road trucking here on Slashdot whenever self-driving vehicles come up in conversation. Jalopnik reports that the Freightliner "Inspiration Truck" will be the first autonomous commercial truck to drive on American roads. It's been given the green light to start testing its self-driving technology on the roads of Nevada. A human will be present at the wheel at all times, and will take control whenever the truck is in more populated areas. "Given a big trucks' long stopping distances and limited maneuverability, driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."
Dupe (Score:3, Funny)
This development was already described over a decade ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
Trains (Score:3)
If it needs a human in "more populated areas" it's no better than putting trailers on a train and having local drivers pick up the loads there.
Of course trans are more economical and I expect more "environmentally friendly".
Re: (Score:3)
Of course trans are more economical and I expect more "environmentally friendly".
It depends on the job you're trying to do, and what your trains look like. A monorail (monorail? monorail!) PRT system has very little footprint and takes relatively little material to build, that's quite environmentally friendly even for relatively low occupancy. Traditional rail has more potential throughput per "lane" (rail line, in this case) than freeway — but for traditional rail with traditional trains, you have to reach fairly high utilization numbers before it becomes cheaper than the highway
Re: (Score:2)
My car, traveling the 500 Miles to my mother's house, averages around 65 miles per hour, including the one stop for gas. A train to the the vicinity, averages about 1/3 that, because of the stops along the way it makes, that my car doesn't. Nothing like taking a 8 hour drive and making it nearly 24 hours. And no, this isn't highly dense populated areas, this is through the central valley of California. And no, HSR isn't going to solve this problem either, it is only going to make it marginally better.
Re: (Score:2)
Right, you can't use rail unless you have high utilization, and you can't have high utilization if the rail doesn't do the job you need to do, or if the public transportation systems along the rail line don't work. That's why PRT makes more sense than rail for most trips, and why we should use classic rail only for long hauls and PRT for short trips.
Re: (Score:3)
Holy Hell...
Freight Trains, you know, the topic of this entire article?
Re: (Score:2)
Freight Trains, you know, the topic of this entire article?
Yeah, you can't build rail just for freight, because it won't see enough utilization. It has to carry passengers, too. You can't take the efficiency of the freight-carrying system alone because it doesn't operate alone, it's dependent on being part of the passenger-carrying system (and vice versa.)
Re: (Score:2)
If it needs a human in "more populated areas" it's no better than putting trailers on a train and having local drivers pick up the loads there.
Not necessarily, it might allow them to get around total driving time limits.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course trans are more economical
I thought pay discrimination based on sexual orientation was illegal...
oh you meant trains not trans
Re:Dupe (Score:5, Insightful)
What "something" do you propose when all the jobs are gone?
Re: (Score:3)
Or you could be an actual human and do something with yourself and not look to the state for your survival.
You don't get it do you?
You will have to have some type of socialism, or you'll end up with 3 families owning all the robots and wealth, and a state of permanent revolution from those who have nothing and no way of creating it.
An ever bigger torpedo (Score:3)
than self driving cars.
Re:An ever bigger torpedo (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't you prefer automated trucks?
Computers can see all directions at once, humans can't.
That is the main problem motorcycles have.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.
You could reasonably address this to some degree by marking the temporary lanes with colored paints. Presumably, these problems will mostly be solved by automatic routing. Your car will just go around, whenever possible. It will know there will be a delay there. Obviously, sometimes that's not possible, which is why the human is going to have to intervene in some situations for quite a long while. Since most of those situations are going to be at quite low speeds, though, the driving controls can recede in
Re: (Score:2)
Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.
You could reasonably address this to some degree by marking the temporary lanes with colored paints. Presumably, these problems will mostly be solved by automatic routing. Your car will just go around, whenever possible. It will know there will be a delay there. Obviously, sometimes that's not possible, which is why the human is going to have to intervene in some situations for quite a long while. Since most of those situations are going to be at quite low speeds, though, the driving controls can recede in importance. Perhaps a force-feedback joystick really will become a viable car controller, at least for vehicles which are expected to drive themselves almost all of the time.
In theory, the orange cones could have RFID or some other technology added that can be polled indicating that it's in a construction zone. Much like the invisible fence for the iRobot vacuum cleaners.
As for routing around, this works fine for passenger vehicles but no so well for trucks. There are routes that trucks are prohibited from taking due to bridge height, weight restrictions, etc.
I still think that the biggest challenge is weather. A system that works well in clear dry weather quickly falls apar
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, sure.
Let's change all construction practices and infrastructure to try to solve the ways in which self driving vehicles will be completely unprepared for the real world.
We can remove all the other drivers, embed tracking sensors in the road, build it out of special materials, put sensors everywhere. That will totally work. Except in the massive amount of places where it won't.
For these things to ever
Re: (Score:2)
Let's change all construction practices and infrastructure to try to solve the ways in which self driving vehicles will be completely unprepared for the real world.
While allowing terrists to cause massive pileups with nothing but a can of paint and a brush...
Re:An ever bigger torpedo (Score:4, Informative)
Erm its already sorted out? There is a human in the car/truck you know for that exact reason.
It detects an unusual situation and gets the fleshy to take over.
And once a set of road works are mapped, the cars can learn from others that have already gone through.
Ideally the councils/counties would actually have some ability to control the autonomous cars, specify road closures and stuff like that before the car even gets close.
Re: (Score:3)
Erm its already sorted out? There is a human in the car/truck you know for that exact reason. It detects an unusual situation and gets the fleshy to take over.
If a human has to be sitting alert in the driver's seat, waiting for the signal to take over, then it's not a self-driving car.
Re: (Score:2)
It's been sorted, it's been done. The technology is here, the technology is now. Humans do not excel as yo
Re: (Score:2)
The problem isn't the 99.99%, but the .01% where the right thing has to be done quickly. Take for example the small tunnel near me. It's a 4 lane, 2 in each direction. While being repaired it's down to a two lane, with cones all over telling you to move into the other direction lane to proceed. Cops all over directing traffic, really it's a pretty chaotic situation with no defined way to navigate it other than taking in what is going on and doing the right thing. No two cops direct traffic the same way, no two construction zones are set up the same way. Each one is a learn as you go, something humans excel at even if it's a 16 year old kid who just got their license. This is the Achilles heel of automated driving and we're quite a number of years away from sorting it all out.
Certainly this is a problem in a hybrid system. However, I'd think that the real goal of an automated driving system would be one where everything is automated. There wouldn't be any lines, or any cones, or any guys standing around with signs. If they don't want vehicles on one side of the tunnel, they'd just tell the control system and there wouldn't be any cars on that side of the tunnel. Routing would take into account reduced capacity and cars would make very long detours to reduce the load so that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not for long... (Score:3)
That's just temporary. Soon the "drivers" will be remote, with the feeds to a central terminal where a team of virtual drivers are available to take over in the event of conditions which the computer cannot navigate, and for parking/docking/interactions. An office of 50 drivers will be able to monitor and control 1000 or more vehicles in service.
That's where your real savings will come from.
Re: (Score:2)
Computers also lock up, crash, burn out, get hacked, fuck up due to poor coding, etc.
Not that humans are any better - just pointing out that "have a computer do it" isn't the panacea you seem to think it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Ever fly commercial airlines?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's considerably easier to automate flying in a mostly empty sky.
And they still crash when the computer doesn't know what to do.
Teamsters (Score:2)
Re:Teamsters (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the Teamsters were more into the loading and unloading, and the drivers were often owner/operators.
Never heard of more than one person operating a truck at a time.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the Teamsters were more into the loading and unloading, and the drivers were often owner/operators.
Teamsters [wikipedia.org] are significantly though not exclusively truckers, including drivers but also warehouse workers and various other blue collar workers. Companies like UPS are commonly organized by the Teamsters. Some drivers are owner/operators but plenty drive for large companies like Con-Way, etc.
Never heard of more than one person operating a truck at a time.
Long distance hauling often has teams of two drivers (often husband/wife) though obviously they don't operate the vehicle at exactly the same moment.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
So the guy who overturned his Winnebago is a 'douchebag', but YOUR problems are purely mechanical, beyond your control? Gotcha.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the Teamsters were more into the loading and unloading, and the drivers were often owner/operators.
Never heard of more than one person operating a truck at a time.
Laws define how long a driver can drive between mandatory breaks - basically making sure they get their sleep. Truckers keep log books that are legally required to be accurate and will be inspected if they get stopped by police. Falsifying logs is a criminal offense.
Some folks do what's called "team driving" where two people in one truck take "shifts" and drive non-stop (this with a sleeper in the cab). Often it's husband/wife teams. I've honestly considered doing it with my wife after the kids are out
Re: (Score:2)
That's called "team driving," which my aunt and uncle did for decades. The similarity of terms between that and "Teamsters" is probably cause for the confusion.
Re: (Score:2)
Team driving is a big thing. Some trucking companies - notably Covenant - have moved to an all-team format for company drivers. Owner-operators can do what they want, but solo drivers are likely to be outcompeted by team drivers.
The issue is that in recent years, driver duty regulations have been much more strictly enforced, so you truly cannot have your truck moving for more than 11 hours a day as a solo driver. If you have two drivers on board, you can keep the load moving all the time except for rest bre
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not all truck drivers are unionized.
So what will happen would be the non-unionized organizations will be using these to cut costs, if they are more affordable than a unioned shop, the unionized shop will go out of business.
In the past good middle class jobs consisted of skills that just aquired attention, and following a process. This type of stuff computers and robotics excel at. Leaving jobs for humans to focus more around creative skills, or just the fact that our bodies are rather multi-purpose.
We rea
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Teamsters? Are you serious? They have already ruined the work force in AMERICA! Because of teamsters company's are leaving the US to go other places! Myself and my family have lost a good paying job because of unions and teamsters are nothing but GREED! Don't get me wrong in the early days we needed them but of late teamsters are nothing but greedy lazy groups of people!!!
Now, I'm not a union man either, but how exactly do you offshore domestic freight transportation? Is there a room in India somewhere where people are driving big rigs around like drones?
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a room in India somewhere where people are driving big rigs around like drones?
There will be soon if this technology gains traction.
Re:Teamsters (Score:5, Insightful)
What this does, more to the point, is put millions of people out of work, and ruin the Teamsters union as a side effect.
Time to take it down a notch. FTA:
A human will be present at the wheel at all times, and will take control whenever the truck is in more populated areas.
Hopefully this will put an end to one trucker passing another trucker because the first one is driving the speed limit and the other one wants to go 1 mile over the speed limit, thereby slowing down traffic for everyone else. I usually avoid my nearby interstate on weekdays because this situation happens all the time. I remember one time it took a trucker 20 minutes to pass 3 other trucks ahead of him. It was particularly annoying since the truck speed limit was 55 and the car speed limit was 70.
Re:Teamsters (Score:4, Interesting)
> > A human will be present at the wheel at all times, and will take control whenever the truck is in more populated areas.
For now. Anyone who thinks that eliminating drivers isn't the end goal of this (or that we lack the ingenuity to do it) is fooling themselves. Think about it. If you replace your fleet of regular trucks with driverless ones, you suddenly don't have to pay all those drivers $50k a year (or whatever it pays now), and your trucks are twice as productive because they can operate 24 hours a day since there's no driver to get tired.
Mind you, I'm not advocating that we halt technological progress, but we're coming up on a time when there just aren't going to be enough jobs to go around, and the economy is going to have to adjust for that in a way that rewards people who work but doesn't starve people who want to work but can't find jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
"Mind you, I'm not advocating that we halt technological progress, but we're coming up on a time when there just aren't going to be enough jobs to go around, and the economy is going to have to adjust for that in a way that rewards people who work but doesn't starve people who want to work but can't find jobs."
I've been saying this for years (decades, really). In the 1970s it was said we'd all be working a 10 hour work week. Except that humans are regularly willing to trade 40-50 hours a week in return for
Re: (Score:3)
There have been publication and experiments over hundreds of years forecasting (or advocating) a utopia where people work less and get paid more. These would work except they all require a strong socialist state and severely curtailed capitalism. There are some countries which have come close to this utopia with strong worker rights and supports. I think many of the Scandinavian countries are in this category.
The key is having workers capture increases in productivity. Currently in the US (and many other pl
Re:Teamsterst (Score:2)
The trucks are rev- and/or speed limited (at least here) to 55 mph.
It's just like Tour de France, truckers lurk in each other's jetstream, because it's easier and economical to drive next.
To change heads, the truck needs to overtake without the tail losing momentum.
I doubt a computer would do it more efficient, a train will.
Re:Teamsters (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, and all those combines and harvesters were invented to wipe out farmers and sharecroppers and such. And it WORKED!! There are hardly any sharecroppers left anymore. And not a damn lot of farmers.
Okay, everyone raise their hands who thinks we should disallow that sort of thing, and go back to the early 19th century way of doing things, with one person in three being a farmer?
It should also be noted that most of us are programmers. Once upon a time, "computer" was a job description. Which we, collectively, have put out of business. What's worse, "computers" used to be one of the few technical field dominated by women...so, should we go back to the old days of women "computers" and no electronics? Really?
Face it, progress happens. And removing the need for unnecessary jobs is a good thing. Unless you're a Luddite, of course (you remember the Luddites, right? they objected to machinery taking away the jobs of regular guys)....
Re:Teamsters (Score:5, Insightful)
This was never about self-driving cars. This was always about wiping out an entire employment sector and piping even more profit up to the top. And yes, that is a bad thing.
Well, it's certainly not a good thing for the truck drivers, but for society as a whole it's a net win. Keeping humans working on jobs a machine can do isn't the optimum choice and it's not something we should want. The only issue is that currently our society requires you to have money to access any resources and for most people that means working for a living, if the opportunities for work decline that causes a problem with the wealth distribution system. The answer is to fix the wealth distribution system not to keep people doing make work.
The first self driving automobile worth a damn (Score:2)
It will be interesting seeing these cruise down the highway. I forget the scifi movie I saw with these things. They were basically like big robotic road trains... I think they were getting robbed in some sort of mad max type situation.
ANYWAY... Always nice to be reminded on occasion I do actually live in the future.
Maximum Overdrive (Score:2)
>> I forget the scifi movie I saw with these things.
It was called "Maximum Overdrive." :)
Re: (Score:2)
not the one I was thinking of...
nice edit (Score:2)
Good job, the final copy was better than my submission.
It will be interesting to see how automated OTR trucking plays out vis-a-vis the various states' stance on self-driving vehicles [stanford.edu], especially those which have outright banned them.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless they can navigate ever present, always changing construction zones, those things will be useless in my state.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless they can navigate ever present, always changing construction zones, those things will be useless in my state.
For now, a human driver will be on board to handle those occurrences. Later on, when regulatory acceptance is captured, they will be handled by a remote driver who operates the vehicle by telepresence. They will probably be located in regional service centers, organized into networks, and contracted by shipping lines which will be reduced primarily to corporations which own trucks and hire a manager, an accountant, and a receptionist who is occasionally replaced by a temp.
I for one welcome our truck driving overlords (Score:4, Informative)
If a self driving big rig is going to make freeway driving better for the rest of us, then I am all for it.
I have personally encountered truck drivers weaving side to side, tailgating and making sudden lane changes (the worst one was also in heavy rain just as I was about to pass a truck) - and I don't even drive that much. I blame all that activity on drivers who either don't pay attention, are possibly sleep deprived and/or are trying to make some arbitrary (and possibly illegally imposed) mileage requirement. If that can be eliminated then the roads will be a safer place to be.
On the other hand I also see on local roads, signs that say things like "Truckers - the GPS information for this road is wrong - you cannot get through this way". So I am interested in knowing in general how route planning will be made for all driverless vehicles, as it would seem that local knowledge and common sense will (currently) always trump a computer selected route. Worst case scenario was that tech journalist who took the wrong road in northern CA (?) in winter and got stuck in snow and died.
Re: (Score:2)
I think once self-driving vehicles are more common, a great deal more effort will be put into map accuracy and route planning.
And already I would expect a commercial trucking operation to use a more robust navigation solution than a $99 TomTom.
Re: (Score:2)
I think once self-driving vehicles are more common, a great deal more effort will be put into map accuracy and route planning.
I agree that mapping will improve in the future - but in order to do so it will need to take vehicle dimensions/weight into account as constraint, as well as indicating how things like how seasonal and day to day weather affects the route.
And already I would expect a commercial trucking operation to use a more robust navigation solution than a $99 TomTom.
Given that the majority of trucking companies are owner/operators, I am not so sure of that assumption.
Re: (Score:2)
Given that the majority of trucking companies are owner/operators, I am not so sure of that assumption.
I don't anticipate independent owner/operators will be the ones purchasing the fleets of autonomous trucks.
Re: (Score:2)
I think once self-driving vehicles are more common, a great deal more effort will be put into map accuracy and route planning.
Putting the cart before the horse, aren't we?
Re: (Score:2)
No, I think they would happen simultaneously. If I were the engineer designing the automated navigation system, I would consider this problem and specify the system only operate on well-mapped roads and would talk to the map provider to get details on how accurate and recent their maps are. Perhaps cross match them to other available mapping data. Then I would preclude the system from operating on roads with data integrity below a certain threshold.
I would inform the navigation data provider of this, and th
Re: (Score:2)
No, I think they would happen simultaneously. If I were the engineer designing the automated navigation system, I would consider this problem and specify the system only operate on well-mapped roads and would talk to the map provider to get details on how accurate and recent their maps are. Perhaps cross match them to other available mapping data. Then I would preclude the system from operating on roads with data integrity below a certain threshold.
I would inform the navigation data provider of this, and the purchaser of the vehicle. Then there'd be a /. article about how "9% Of Mapping Data Unusable For Autonomous Driving." And the crowd would start a lengthy systemd flamewar and meanwhile the companies that provide mapping data would produce the better data they'd already been working on anyway because they're not complete morons.
Fixed that minor incorrectness for you. Apart from that, well said.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand I also see on local roads, signs that say things like "Truckers - the GPS information for this road is wrong - you cannot get through this way". So I am interested in knowing in general how route planning will be made for all driverless vehicles, as it would seem that local knowledge and common sense will (currently) always trump a computer selected route.
Currently, the trucks will be operated the old-fashioned way in towns, so there will still be a human behind the wheel reading the signs and responding to them, or not.
Worst case scenario was that tech journalist who took the wrong road in northern CA (?) in winter and got stuck in snow and died.
You know there's a bit more to that story, right? Got stuck in snow, wandered off alone and died. Wife and kid survived him by staying with the car like sensible people. Carry water and blankets in your car.
Re: (Score:2)
Currently, the trucks will be operated the old-fashioned way in towns, so there will still be a human behind the wheel reading the signs and responding to them, or not.
If that was the case then trucks wouldn't go down the wrong road ever. 2 weeks ago there was a report on the local news of a truck driver ignoring the sign that said "Don't drive here", and crashing and causing an issue.
You know there's a bit more to that story, right? Got stuck in snow, wandered off alone and died. Wife and kid survived him by staying with the car like sensible people. Carry water and blankets in your car.
While he may have died because of bad survival skills, the root cause of his death was the choice of route.
Re: (Score:2)
Currently, the trucks will be operated the old-fashioned way in towns, so there will still be a human behind the wheel reading the signs and responding to them, or not.
If that was the case then trucks wouldn't go down the wrong road ever.
You should really read text before quoting it. It would help with the quality of your replies.
Re: (Score:2)
You should really read text before quoting it. It would help with the quality of your replies.
Absolutely. But constructing an argument that is predicated on negating a sentence through the use of an easily overlooked two word suffix, does not enhance comprehension.
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. But constructing an argument that is predicated on negating a sentence through the use of an easily overlooked two word suffix, does not enhance comprehension.
Tacking "...or not" onto the end of a sentence is an extremely common construct in American English, which denotes acceptance of irony.
Re: (Score:2)
Tacking "...or not" onto the end of a sentence is an extremely common construct in American English, which denotes acceptance of irony.
I am well aware of the concept of irony, but that was not the subject of my rebuttal. As it seems that you are more interested in playing word games rather than discussing the subject at hand, my feeling is that you are just trying to show off your stunning intellect and masterful debating skills, or not.
Re: (Score:2)
I am well aware of the concept of irony, but that was not the subject of my rebuttal.
It doesn't seem like you are particularly aware.
As it seems that you are more interested in playing word games rather than discussing the subject at hand
Hypocrite. I am discussing the subject at hand, with people who are doing better than playing clever word games. The "or not" in my comment addressed the point before you raised it: namely, that drivers might not in fact observe the information provided by local signage. So if you have anything to add, rather than ignoring what I wrote, that will elevate you above "clever word games".
Re: (Score:2)
Hypocrite. I am discussing the subject at hand, with people who are doing better than playing clever word games.
Ahh .. online abuse. Almost more predictable than Godwin's observations.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh .. online abuse. Almost more predictable than Godwin's observations.
If you won't take criticism, you can never improve. But you can cry instead, if you want.
Idiots in passenger vehicles (Score:5, Insightful)
I have personally encountered truck drivers weaving side to side, tailgating and making sudden lane changes (the worst one was also in heavy rain just as I was about to pass a truck) - and I don't even drive that much.
Having driven a large rig before I can assure you that usually the problem is NOT the big rig driver. It is the idiots in passenger vehicles who cut them off and do all kinds of stupid driving around big vehicles. You cannot really appreciate how little regard many people have for the risks they take until you've driven one of these.
Re: (Score:2)
Having driven a large rig before I can assure you that usually the problem is NOT the big rig driver. It is the idiots in passenger vehicles who cut them off
I do see idiots in passenger vehicles cut big rigs off, but I have just as frequently seen assholes in big rigs cut me off. They pull over to pass as I am rapidly advancing which is already illegal, then they take a literally illegal period of time to execute the passing manouver (in California, if you're not actively overtaking, you must stay out of the passing lane, thankyouverymuchassholes) and then they often lag long after the truck they've passed has flashed their lights to denote permission to merge,
Re: (Score:2)
Having driven a large rig before I can assure you that usually the problem is NOT the big rig driver. It is the idiots in passenger vehicles who cut them off and do all kinds of stupid driving around big vehicles. You cannot really appreciate how little regard many people have for the risks they take until you've driven one of these.
I am not denying that car drives can be idiots and have seen a bunch of them as well, but I have seen just as many bad truck drivers. And FWIW I've also seen a fair share of bad cop drivers.
Big Rigs (Score:2)
But can these self-driving Big Rigs pass through solid matter, travel at unlimited speeds while moving backwards, and climb steep hills as if they're nothing?
Re: (Score:2)
THIS will drive the adoption of the auto-driver (Score:5, Insightful)
The US trucking industry has been in a crisis for at least 3 years.
The regulatory changes brought about in this administration (for example EPA/state regs that mandate new eco-friendly trucks far faster than normal replacement rates or new DOT rulings that took away around 20% of a driver's available hours per week, ie income) are only the icing on the cake. Simply: the old drivers are all quitting because of the hassles and continuing low pay, while few new drivers are joining the industry. Companies can't find drivers. I know 1Q14 3000+ trucking companies closed (most were Bill & Mary trucking, ie small individual owner-operators, but many were substantial firms) and that was the 7th quarter in a ROW that had happened. Intermodal investment is simply too slow to respond to the waves of need in the trucking freight market.
Enter the self-driving car.
*Certainly* the autodriver will not be able to "handle" a rig in the context of a terminal; there are just too bloody many variables to see that happening soon. But for the bulk of long-haul miles? I can certainly see a sort of 'local pilotage' system developing where trucks are driven by a human to a terminal on the outskirts of a metro area. From that point the human gets out and the autodriver takes it to a similar terminal at the destination city, where a local 'pilot' gets in and handles the truck from there.
The compelling commercial shortage of drivers and the financial rewards (no rest hours, no drug issues, perfect recordkeeping, & - I suspect - better overall safety results lowering insurance costs, etc) all will push the larger freight firms to aggressively pursue this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Simply: the old drivers are all quitting because of the hassles and continuing low pay, while few new drivers are joining the industry. Companies can't find drivers. I know 1Q14 3000+ trucking companies closed (most were Bill & Mary trucking, ie small individual owner-operators, but many were substantial firms)
There has to be more to this. If companies can't find drivers (particularly bigger firms), perhaps they should offer higher pay? I can't imagine their margins are so thin that they cannot increase trucker salaries without going into red.
So perhaps there is another explanation, because yours sounds like trucker salary is set in stone and can never be changed.
Well, there goes my truck stop pimp game (Score:2)
Hoes, time to look for new work! Gotz to find me some new robot hoes!
Bummer! (Score:2)
That will be the death of crystal meth.
Apostrophes/who said that?/Simpsons did it (Score:3)
Gollum writes:
"Given a big trucks'
*rolled up newspaper swat* No! Go to your bed!
long stopping distances and limited maneuverability, driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."
Wait, who said that? It's just an unattributed quote stuck at the end of the summary.
Also, Simpsons did it.
What could possibly go wrong (Score:5, Funny)
2. Bring your car to a stop, thus forcing the rig to stop
3. Help yourself to whatever goodies the truck is hauling
4. Profit!
Re: (Score:3)
1. Drive your car in front of a self-driving rig
1. assortment of HD cameras record your every move.
2. Bring your car to a stop, thus forcing the rig to stop
2. An operator at a centralized dispatch/monitoring center is notified, as the truck's video feed pops up on their console.
3. Help yourself to whatever goodies the truck is hauling
3. As you step out of the vehicle, the operator presses the button that will connect them with law enforcement in the region in which you are located. They coordinate with local law enforcement to give them a detailed description of your person and vehicle. The video can be passed off to authorities who can process it for biometrics, an
Re: (Score:2)
6. ...and actually, these trucks will be manned; self-driving trucks without drivers are still well into the future. Likely, those won't even have cabs, and perhaps the trailers will also be redesigned to be harder to get into.
Agreed. It's not to fully eliminate drivers (a false sense of security), but to replace highly paid drivers with high school grads who can push a button with red for stop and green for go. Much in the same way there will be pilot-less commercial aircraft in 10 years to get us around. It's all about cost savings, centralized control, maximizing equipment investment (24 hour run times), and safety (fewer accidents = fewer law suits).
The days of having employees in larger numbers performing repetitive actions
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, at that point you're just describing highway robbery. What's to stop you from doing 100% exactly the same thing you just described on a truck right now? Human truck-drivers are going to stop just as much if they see a car parked in the middle of the road they're trying to drive on.
Re: (Score:2)
AutoTrucker> 10:17 Mode Freeway, Speed Limit 75, Speed 70, Following planned route
AutoTrucker> 10:23 Mode Freeway, Speed Limit 75, Speed 70, Following planned route
AutoTrucker> 10:28 Mode Freeway, Speed Limit 75, Speed 0, Planed route blocked, No alternative possible
AutoTrucker> 10:28 Notify home base, Request human oversight: normal, upload last 10 minutes of video camera footage
AutoTrucker> 10:29 Detected unauthorized access to load, Request human oversight: Urgent, Upload video camera live
Now all we need (Score:2)
Is a passing comet [wikipedia.org].
Reality Check (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Or on the Baghdad to Mosul route.
Re:Reality Check (Score:4, Informative)
Strip mining companies spend millions on giant trucks whose only function is to shuttle minerals on a private road, from the bottom of the mine to the unloading dock. Until the technology of driving robots has clearly proven itself in a setting like this, it should be kept off the public streets and highways.
The technology of driving robots has already clearly proven itself in mining. For instance:
https://medium.com/war-is-bori... [medium.com]
(from a google search for "robot mining truck")
Nevada is easy (Score:2)
Let's see how they handle this when they are programmed to minimize travel time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Technology can't help here? (Score:2)
"Given a big trucks' long stopping distances and limited maneuverability, driving one requires the ability to correctly predict what's going to happen far out ahead. That requires foresight and intuition that are difficult to program into computers."
I can't see why technology wouldn't exceed a human operator in this situation.
In theory, the truck computer knows the braking capacity of the truck (extensively tested with varying loads, brake materials, tires, road conditions), the mass of the load (and possibly even its distribution over all the wheels), the weather conditions, the actual physical distance to the vehicle(s) in front of it AND their velocity, and possibly even the physical condition of the roads, not to mention the physical geography of t
We just have to enforce the laws in the books. (Score:5, Funny)
All horseless carriages must be preceded by a flagman on foot, it shall come to a full and complete stop at every cross road, ring a bell, set off a fire cracker before proceeding further. Such horseless carriages should also have a fake horse head/neck mounted so as not to frighten horses.
The future's still a long ways off (Score:3)
Good luck getting those automated semi trucks out there.
Amazing! (Score:2)
I for one welcome the opportuniy for big corps to save money by reducing the need to hire skilled drivers to control the 40 tons of metal travelling at 60+MPH sometimes inches away from other cars. What could possibly go wrong!
Future Job Opening (Score:2)
Well, once the driver/overseer is gone then there will be job opening up because of this. The full service gas station will come back!
Re: (Score:2)
I would think that with increased stopping distances would mean farther forward camera's?
The long stopping distances should also mean lower speeds. some states limit speeds while towing, for example in California it is always illegal to exceed 55 mph while towing anything with any kind of vehicle. Of course, it's rare to see a big rig going less than 65 or 70 on any highway in California, so make of that what you will. Perhaps the self-driving trucks will obey the law in that regard, and as such do much better at holding their lane than human drivers — who I regularly see fail at this bec
Re: (Score:2)
The current problem is that commercial pressure causes people to drive too fast or not pull over when conditions get bad. I posted this earlier but non of these trucks should've been on the road:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I was driving in Nevada one dark, moonless night, when out of nowhere came a cow in the middle of the road... I'd like to see how an autonomous vehicle would deal with that.
That's out of nowhere to you, but the computer is going to be able to see in the dark far outside the range of your headlights. Its headlights are going to be a convenience to other drivers, and an IR source for its night vision — which will have automatic gain control far outside the range of your pupils. It'll also likely have radar and lidar so even if it can't see the cow, it'll know it's there.