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Big Rigs Go High Tech
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."
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Combat rising fuel costs? They aren't serious, yet. Otherwise, we'd be moving everything we could via railroad, not road. We'd see a lot more aerodynamics. 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. As it is, while many of the tractors aren't too bad, the average truck trailer has all the aerodynamics of a brick. We'd also see lighter trailers with more aluminum and composite carbon fiber in them, more efficient engines, and better tires.
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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%.
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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.
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 the grocery store now comes from China?
What competition do you see in the oil market after the merger of Exxon and Mobil? They closed half of their stations, major refineries and fired plenty of people so they could tighten up the market. Their "Project for the New American Century" has been a disaster for the rest of us and may even bite them in the ass when the US economy collapses under the cost of the Iraq war failure, Iran refusing to sell oil in dollars and persistent problems in Afghanistan. Sooner or later our weakened prestige and currency will ruin their string of "best year ever" profits.
I don't have a fancy degree in Economics nor do I trade commodities but the ruin of the US economy is easy to see. Excuse me while I drive my H2 to pick up another load of Chinese stuff at Walmart.
The summary underestimates the technology development in the trucking industry. Since at least the early 70's oil crisis, no effort has been spared to wheedle out ever last cent per lb-mile. The engine controls are exceptionally sophisticated and the scheduling/routing software is similarly complex. This is not a bunch of stereotypical yokels. Most people here would go broke if they tried to do it.
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
Some of us live in these places called cities, where we can walk to places, and if that is too far we can take a bus or subway for next to nothing. :)
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.
And yet the emissions are still way, way worse than they would be for transport by rail.
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Truckers may not be able to pronounce "Illinois" real well, but they did adopt CB Radios back in the 1970s. That was the closest thing to the Internet until... the Internet.
In case your memory is short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaammaHevT0
I've been getting full semis delivered to me from Ohio to Minnesota for exactly $1050. This price has not changed in the past 4 years.
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.
That's because rail travel is the most energy-efficient we have, with respect to transporting massive amounts of materials across land. Such a comeback would require double-tracks between all pairs of destinations. And regular reliable schedules, heh.
Once everyone finds out that the Semi Trucks drive themselves...
:-)
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...
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 following minimums: two fill-ups per month at 50 dollars (12 gallons E to F) to 70 dollars a visit (17 gallons E to F), plus an extra two visits because there are four weeks extra spread over twelve months, for a yearly total of 1300 to 1800 dollars at current prices. That's just for one typical (Accord, Camry, etc) car, and before taxes are taken out. If taxes suck away a third of your income before you see it, then that almost doubles your percentage of income for fuel.
Thank the piss-poor US dollar, inflation, needless war in Iraq, greedy oil execs, or whatever else suits your fancy. The 1920's will look like a cakewalk compared to what awaits us on our current course, and those of us who still have money will wish they could only spend a handful of percent of it on gas.
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Rail sure is way better where it can be used.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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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 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?).
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Much as I like trains in principle, it has to be said that trucks are not that bad especially where they can run at constant speed and be Diesel fueled. Problems come when they have to mix with other traffic, and that was the strategic error- not providing dedicated truck lanes and separating them from other traffic. One factor driving up SUV/light truck use, in Europe as well as the US is surely fear of heavy trucks.
However, in many countries exactly the same mistake was made with rail - the traffic pattern meant that passenger trains had to be built to the same shunting capability as freight trains, making passenger trains unnecessarily heavy and lacking in efficiency.
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Please, allow me to translate his comment from jerk to English.
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 buy said goods is going down. This -is- a problem, and it's a problem that's going to affect just about everyone.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
Your city must be in Europe, possibly eastern Europe. In most US mass transit systems, fares are at least a dollar each way. Ten bucks a week is 1% of a $52,000 annual gross income, which is certainly in the middle-class ballpark, though on the low side for a technology professional.
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 subway. It does keep the *gas* expenditures down to do that, so I guess I can compete with all the other urbanites on that score.
Exercise for the reader: Name that metropolis!
2*3*3*3*3*11*251