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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."
Once everyone finds out that the Semi Trucks drive themselves, the truckers' union will overthrow society!
Slashdot really needs to get with the times. The Navitron Autodrive System is nearly ten year-old news, though remains a little known secret known to many truckers falling asleep at the wheel.
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!
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Who read the title and thought "OH NO, A SEQUEL!?"
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.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
No... and it doesn't help the transportation industry one bit that transportation costs are approaching a threshold where locally produced goods can compete.
/me stands by for the screams about cartels and oil company profits.
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.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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.
Warning: You are about to experience a collision. Now applying automated force feedback controls and intelligent brake assistance on a large vehicle hauling an unpredictable, possibly liquid or poorly secured load to avoid detected hazard.
Problem?
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Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Maybe some day, hundreds of truckloads of shipments will be piloted by one (maybe two) people. Who knows, maybe there will be just one engine for a hundred containers, and it will be smart enough to generate energy very efficiently, regulate it's own speed, and react to hazards. Maybe they will even make special thoroughfares criss-crossing the nation, on which these super-movers of the future will ride on... The future is bright indeed! I just have one question: what might we call them?
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
I wish they would clean up their emissions. Too bad there's no financial incentive or laws to force that.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
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.
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..takes me about 22 min to work. I fill up about once every 1.5 weeks or so..depending on how heavy a foot I have in the turbo. It costs about $30-$33 to fill up I think....I really don't look at the pump very often. So, I basically spend about $90/mo on gas. That's less than 1% of my salary yes....
My car gets roughly 23 mpg in the city..I've been riding my motorcycle a lot now that the weather is nice...it gets abotu 33-34mpg (big engine, Yamaha Roadliner)....
Man...I have the feeling that SUV resale prices are gonna get pretty much nil soon....what is trade in on one of those going for these days?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Will it stop directing them through tiny villages with roads too narrow to cope?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
No, actually retreading is the recapping of an old carcass with a new tread. They might be safe, but not enough for my tastes and experience.
What?
Wrong, retreads are recaps ie the old tread is removed from the tire casing and new tread (strip of rubber)is added. The glue that hold the cap gets hot
from under inflation, heavy loads , hot days. Most of the time retreads are put on trailers. If you look closely at the tire you can see the seam.
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
Back in '91, IBM won a contract from J.B. Hunt to develop a satellite based system for trucks. It used a Qualcomm satellite system, a 486SX based tablet computer (I designed the keyboard controller, power management processor and did a lot of the BIOS work on it), and a docking station.
:)
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
A train? Welcome to the 19th century. James Watt will be proud.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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.
So, you've had to dodge steel-belted at 60+, too? That is some scary-ass shit, regardless of what you're driving.
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.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
as others have said, Retreading is adding new rubber, what you are talking about is Regrooving, http://fleetowner.com/equipment/tiretracks/fleet_resist_temptation/ which is different.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote
But does it have a helicopter cab which can detach and fly away?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
Disregarding everything else you said (I just don't feel like typing =] )...
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 an expert so take it with a grain of salt.
Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
Your weekly budget is the same as your income? Don't you have such a thing as savings?
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
The technologies listed here are pretty old now.
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.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
The cost of almost all other commodities is driven by the cost of energy! It takes energy to mine and refine metals, it takes energy to fertilize, harvest, and transport grains, etc. Of course there has not been a huge move in the cost of energy worldwide, it is mostly the devaluation of the dollar increasing the cost of oil for US consumers, the cost in Europe for instance hasn't significantly risen due to the strength of the euro vs the dollar.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Rail sure is way better where it can be used.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
>If you have to fill up your tank once a week
I don't. I made choices in life in order to be less sensitive to the price of gas. You could do the same.
5% eh? So, no doubt, still not your biggest worry.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>Pretentious asshole.
I *will* take the benefit of choices I make in life.
I *will not* read anything you have to say, after you go to the level of personal insult.
Whatever you wrote, went away, after "asshole."
I *never* sink to this level, and I *will not* engage in dialogue with anyone who does.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I used to be a truck driver before I got into Unix Administration (long story but backing up is now a lot safer). When I left the profession in 1999 the truck stops were just putting rj11 jacks for dial up in the trucker section of the restaurants...Not exactly fast but computers had not hit the real of being personal communication yet....which truckers adopt pretty fast. In 1995 I used to feel like a big shot for walking around with a cell phone when I was among non-truckers but truck drivers already had them and owner-operators began to depend upon them immediatly.
...I had gauges that used dials and not a single LCD was present and I relied soley on mirror placement and use to avoid accidents.
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.
Regarding the article you linked to: this is extremely rare. You can't make any money operating equipment like that, except for certain short haul dedicated stuff like construction haulers. Trucks require constant maintenance or they break down in extremely expensive ways.
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.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
A small while ago I had an occasion where a friend was giving me a lift *don't worry he got the OK from his company first* as I thought it would be a fun experience to go on a run. I was expecting some run down, greasy, loud U-haul type experience. I was blown away by his Modern Machine. It was Swankier the my damn apartment.
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 Cameras
20 Inch DVD Entertainment system with Xbox 360
ect... ect...
This doesn't even include the major Job enhancing features he pointed out. They have some sort of wireless system where Weigh Stations are not even needed anymore. His dash has a little blinking light to let him know he can drive right past. The downside was some sort of "Tattler" that over the internet was sending all sorts of info to his company. It had a little screen that showed when he had to stop. He hated the damn thing. It even did all his logging for him, but somehow he said it was a bad thing.
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.
...when did they invent mouseover??
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
In the UK with have heavy goods vehicles typically with 420-480BHP pulling 44 tonnes (88000lbs) and managing to return 8-10MPG despite the fact that the geography of the UK means we don't benefit from the long straightish free-flowing road system the USA has.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
You and Ayn Rand!
----
"help drivers avoid an accident, all working in real time" The trouble they had with the old systems was they weren't real-time. "*beep* You should have avoided that collision."
My father is a life long trucker, and when I was younger I went with him on several trips, learning the business.
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.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Your thinking of those vertical, high population density cities on the east coast right?
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.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Blah blah blah... ...cool mouseover diagram...
blah blah blah
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?).
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
To put this into perspect, in the UK people are starting to complain that it's costing them £80 a time to fill up, thats nearly $160 USD.
We don't have so much of a car culture or the need to drive obscene distances every day, so it's much less of a problem.
Does this help with the fact that a lot of stuff can be shipped more efficiently by train?
However, as we have learned since moving to Switzerland, "efficient" does not necessarily mean "fast".
Slashdot is even further behind the times than that. Well, the submitter, but still.
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.
If america truckers weaned themselves off their love of conventionals and used cabovers where the engine goes under the cab (like 99.9% of euro trucks) that 2 metre hood/bonnet at the front could vanish and with it about 1 or 2 tons of unnecessary dead weight. Not only that - a shorter tractor is more manouverable and because its lighter can haul a larger load for the same engine size.
I wish I knew.
you *will* make sure to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact a pretentious asshole
I always have to laugh when I see american trucks. They try so hard to stay a decade behind the rest of the world. They are failing though, that adaptive cruise control and lane change detection are fairly new.
Depends. Try driving from Berne to Zurich around 1700. Train (station to station, both quite centralized) takes 58 minutes while driving (Highway on- to offramp, rather off centre) at an ideal 124 km/h (120 km/h legal limit plus 4 km/h safety margin for laser measurements) those 121.5 kilometers will take 0.8 minutes more. Assuming a very optimistic 110 km/h, driving will actually add about 15% to your travel time.
Berne - Zurich may be a somewhat unfair example as it's one of the most important sections -- but large parts of the swiss train network are similarly fast and extremely on time. Going by train will get you to most places equally fast as driving and let you do work, eat relaxedly, enjoy a movie or enjoy some quality time with your significant other joining the rail high club. Or so I heard. Heh.
Also, regarding your sig: Wine 1.0 is scheduled (and apparently moving ahead on time) for release in june, 1.0-rc1 is out.
The guy says he hates cars too, so he probably doesn't even know how to be fuel efficient with his driving..
which is totally what she said
Isn't that more "steel/aluminium for gas"? The water doesn't get used up in fuel cell processes if it's done right.
which is totally what she said
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.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Maybe someone who has to spend 10% of their income just to commute needs to look at a more efficient method of commuting? Motorcycles, or even bicycles? And if they have to commute 50 miles or something to work then they should look into either relocating their house, their job, or looking into telecommuting. I know that is very difficult for a lot of scenarios, of course - but Americans tend to drive unnecessarily large cars with unecessarily large engines, and think that 30mpg is 'fuel efficient'. My diesel hatchback was getting 36mpg even though I thrash it all the time. If I drove like an old lady I could probably get more 40mpg out of it even around town, and about 50-60mpg out on intercity roads.. likewise when I had my little motorbike I probably got 70 mpg or more. The only reason I don't still have a motorbike is that it got stolen so I realised I'd need a place with a garage if I wanted to have a motorbike :(
.. uh.. hmm". People who need an SUV for work should have their fuel paid by their employers anyway. Other people who just use SUVs to occasionally haul wood or whatever excuse they use, would be better off driving a smaller car and renting a truck whenever they really need it. And by 'small' car I don't mean a BMW 3 series or equivalent. I mean like Honda Civic size or even smaller. I couldn't believe how big the roads and cars were when I visited Canada.. and I imagine the US is very similar.
I understand that the distance between cities, or even travel distances inside cities, are much higher in America - but the price of fuel is still insanely cheap compared to over here in the UK (though at lot of the difference is tax). I saw diesel for £1.30 a litre.. that's like $10 a gallon isn't it? It's sad to hear people whine so much when they don't realise just how good they have it. "Oh no, I can't drive my SUV to work any more! I need all that space in the back and front to
which is totally what she said
The price of anything hits harder for those that make less money (apart from income tax or equivalent). Unless you want to become communist or socialist then you can't do much about it. How far do you have to travel to work? I think for just commuting I'd spend less than 1% of my gross salary per year, but that's only a commute of about 3 miles a day.. I'm now making almost twice what I made as a student though :) I think including all the fuel I buy each year it would come to about 3% total of my wages.
:p
I've just been banned from driving anyway so I don't have to worry about all this just now
which is totally what she said
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.
I thought this article would be more on the lines of a giant hybrid, maybe a modification of this: 400 hp Hybrid mini Cooper Most of that tech was on my father's truck years ago; onboard logs, gps tracking, etc.
Earlier this year I wandering around the local county fair. A compnay was exhibiting its latest in tractor cabs. It looked like an airplane cockpit. First,there were 360-view TV screens to see what what is happening everywhere. These things take a while a while to stop and start and you want to be stopping for every bump. Then they had GPS navigation for precision planting and harvesting. Not a foot of land would need go to waste. Plus there are computers and sftware to optimize energy usage.
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
That's an incredibly low estimate. The average household in 2001 (the latest data I could find on short notice, today's number is probably higher) bought a little over 1000 gallons of gas a year. Let's just plug in 3.69 a gallon and we arrive at $3690 per year, per household (on average) for gas. What's the median household income? before taxes, $45,016. We can then arrive at a good estimate, 8.1%. That's pre-tax; if you figured it on a slice of spendable income it would be even higher.
We are getting hit with an additional fuel surcharge for every feed delivery now, that is recent over the past few months. Along with an increases in the feed itself (and propane, offroad diesel, electricity, local taxes, water, machinery repair parts, etc..all up over last year). Prices paid by the packers have remained constant. Hmmm This is the poultry biz, only a handful of packers to choose from and they all have basically the same contract they offer the growers so the point is moot there.
Now my analysis isn't so much the oil producers (the gulf nations are barely maintaining parity with what they were getting before the recent cash infusions diluting the dollar's worth, they are complaining about it *loud*) or the other farmers (grains) who start the feed stack making more, the big increases seem to be coming from the big investment places and traders speculating on commodities now that they screwed mortgage lending so bad combined with the Fed bailing out those big investment banks and them taking that new cash and gambling with it.
In short, rapid inflation, with the inflationary dollars going to commodities speculation driving up prices.
Your truckers aren't complaining yet about fuel costs? You use independents or have your own fleet and hired drivers? A lot of the independents are on the razor's edge right now from what I hear.
Depends. Try driving from Berne to Zurich around 1700.
I was actually making a more generalised comment about "Swiss efficiency" and how that, while the Swiss may well be "efficient", you shouldn't count on anything happening particularly quickly (took 2 months to get my ADSL running, been waiting over 5 months for my B permit to appear - and I'm an EU citizen employed on a good salary, so it's not like there's anything "weird" - very annoying, since we need it for my wife to get hers, etc).
However, it's also directly relevant. Trains certainly can move things at a "more efficiently" in terms of "energy expenditure per kilogram" or some such, but to do so in terms of freight, they need to be full, which means they can't leave "right now" to get your delivery to your ASAP. In terms of passengers, trains need to run on a schedule - so if you want to arrive or leave outside their schedule, then your trip may well turn out "faster" by car.
Also, regarding your sig: Wine 1.0 is scheduled (and apparently moving ahead on time) for release in june, 1.0-rc1 is out.
Indeed. Seems there's only 3 Horsemen of the Apocalypse to go.
The gov't bureaucracy takes it's time, speeding that up is usually impossible. Usually, there are interesting alternative routes, though. (I, for one, got a passport in less than 48 hours from asking about for it to holding it in my hand)
;)
The same goes for our telcos, though insisting on a delivery date and generally being a pain in their lower back will help things (as oppossed to the B permit).
Well, anyways: Welcome to Switzerland, enjoy your stay
Berne - Zurich may be a somewhat unfair example as it's one of the most important sections -- but large parts of the swiss train network are similarly fast and extremely on time. Going by train will get you to most places equally fast as driving and let you do work, eat relaxedly, enjoy a movie or enjoy some quality time with your significant other joining the rail high club. Or so I heard. Heh.
I forgot to say that, yes, the Swiss Rail system is indeed awesome (although more so the intercity stuff than urban stuff). It takes me ~15 minutes door to door to get to work (Zollikon-Zurich) and the handful of times we've "needed" a vehicle, Mobility.ch was quick and easy.
We have no plans of purchasing a car - although I am going to get myself a motorcycle to enjoy some of those alpine roads.
Apparently, you don't know any truckers, have never been a trucker, or been in a truck.
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 dismissed because within 5 minutes they were at a complete stop while the driver tried to comply with the law.
Oh, and about truckers and speeding, if you want to slow them down, change the law so they are not paid by the mile. The faster one drives, the more one makes.
I should I know. I drove a semi for Warner for a year.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
So, how many miles have you driven as a trucker?
I spent a year as a trucker. How long were you one?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Rail companies do however have BIG investments in intermodal transport which usually includes trucking as well as ocean freight components. Container shipping is what drives our economy these days and the rail companies know it. The nice thing about container shipping is that there is no need to handle the freight itself directly except at the destinations which saves a lot of money; you just strap the ISO standard container to the truck/train/ship of your choice and use the most efficient transport method available.
Having had to speed up to 65 in a 55 to pass a Swift truck going 60 about a million fucking times, I have to say, *cough*bullshit*cough*. In fact, if I see a trucker in California going the 55 limit, they MUST be pulling a mobile home.
Most of my "bad trucker" experiences are related to the fact they won't use a fucking turnout when there's thirty people behind them. I live in Lake County, California and when going between Upper Lake and Clear Lake (highway 20 between the junctions of highway 29 and highway 53) I have time and time again been stuck behind truckers doing ten or more miles under the speed limit who will happily ignore the MANY extremely broad places for them to pull over and let people pass. A large number of them appear in some town when they have to go slowly anyway and it would not be exceptionally arduous.
I understand they're under pressure to conserve every dime. I don't care - they're still assholes in my book when they do that shit. Nazis were just doing their job too - this is only a matter of degree.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The specific problem in the USA is that the car companies bought up trolley lines and bus lines and shut them down in order to increase demand for private automobiles; they also bought legislation to terminate rail subsidies and create highway subsidies for the same reason. Thus our public transportation system was actually systematically dismantled between the 1920s and 1950s or so.
Another problem is that most existing public transportation is useless. When I lived in San Francisco I could drive from home to work and find free parking in 15 minutes or less on most occasions. In order to get to work on public transportation I had to take a bus, light rail, and another bus; this took about an hour and fifteen minutes in the very best case (everything moving fast and don't miss any connections) which was rare; usually more like an hour and a half or even an hour and three quarters. We're talking one of the biggest cities in the country here, with public transportation only useful on your day off. Thanks, but no thanks.
You do have one salient point though; SUVs are shitty, and the vast majority of people would be able to save a huge bundle every year by driving an econobox and then renting a pickup when they need to haul something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It looks like my guesstimates weren't that far off, really. I only did the math for one car; given that most families have two (or even three) cars, your numbers and mine line up rather well.
Thank you much for providing some (more) concrete numbers.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Solution: Don't allow anything over a class B truck on California Freeways. It's just not safe for full-sized Big Rigs to be on the roads here anyways.
But what about Interstate trucking? Ship it by train. That's what freight trains are for.
Any thoughts as to how to prevent truck races? You know, where one rig climbing a long grade at 47 MPH figures he can pull out to pass a line of other trucks only doing 43 MPH. When the speed limit, and everyone else, is doing 70 MPH.
Have gnu, will travel.
You obviously live nowhere near California.
Knoxville has perennial poor air quality, and this was developed to allow truckers to shut the big engines down when overnighting.
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
Roger Rabbit was right!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
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.
As opposed to what?
Alert! Alert! You are about to get into an accident, 5 hours ago when this data was collected! Take immediate evasive action 5 hours ago!
Comment of the year
We gotta great big convoy!
yeah, that will work~
It is obvious you have no clue about transportation and logistics.
I never had any trouble driving in CA. In fact the worst places are in the NE because many of the locations were designed with 40ft or shorter trailers.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I haven't found Big Rigs to be driving over the speed limit or dangerously on the road. It's the short haul local trucks that seem to be doing the vast majority of reckless driving.
Frankly, I feel for the big rig guys, spending hour upon hour on the road just trying to make a living safely, when they've got the fragile little minnows drafting or cutting into their carefully maintained gap.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It's obvious that you live nowhere near Los Angeles or Orange County.
Having had to speed up to 65 in a 55 to pass a Swift truck going 60 about a million fucking times, I have to say, *cough*bullshit*cough*. In fact, if I see a trucker in California going the 55 limit, they MUST be pulling a mobile home.
:)
Perhaps I'm wrong on the specifics, maybe the regulator is set to 60, and not 55. Its been about 10 years since I used to ride along with my father, and he's mostly local, and short-hop now. I had two complaints about California trucking laws, both as someone in a truck, and someone in a car, restricting trucks to a lower speed limit AND to the right two lanes is daft. Especially at choke points like Needles and Blythe. Trying to merge past a lumbering line of behemoths was annoying as hell in a car, and, in a truck, it let me see just how reckless it forces drivers to be.
It depends on the trucking company of course, as well. Probably more than half of trucks, back then, didn't have regulators. Listening to CB chatter was enlightening, since the truckers know where every damn cop and speed trap is located, thus go as fast as they feel like. If a truck gets pulled over, or even sees highway patrol, guaranteed every truck in radio range knows what mile marker to slow down to the legal limit at.
I live in Lake County, California and when going between Upper Lake and Clear Lake (highway 20 between the junctions of highway 29 and highway 53) I have time and time again been stuck behind truckers doing ten or more miles under the speed limit who will happily ignore the MANY extremely broad places for them to pull over and let people pass.
Is there a grade? Even a 1% grade can be a bitch in a loaded semi. I'm not sure of the terrain. But yes, truckers are just as disposed towards being asses as the rest of the population.
Comparing trucker to Nazis might be a stretch though. They really aren't out to get you.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The "unmanned" trains aren't being driven by robots or computers. They are being driven by traincrew who are on the ground (where they can throw track switches and couple/uncouple cars) and are using a beltpack locomotive remote control http://www.beltpackcorp.com/products.html .
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
IdleAire is pretty much everywhere at the big truckstops (TAs, Petros, maybe some Flying Js) these days. There's also the advantage that trucks aren't allowed to idle or run their APUs next to you, which keeps some people awake (can't do anything about reefer units though).
There's also attendants on duty, which I imagine keeps the hookers and panhandlers away. I'm not sure on that one though - they're pretty persistant.
It's a neat deal, and some companies will pay for it rather than have you idle your truck. I know Arrow has a deal with them where their drivers don't pay anything for it. Dunno who else does though.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Well, I didn't actually mention public transport, I have never really liked that myself either. To get into town from my parents house used to take 25 minutes by car, but since I didn't have a license back then I spent one summer on the bus 1.5 hours each way when getting to work! These days I live in town anyway, but I prefer to walk for 40 minutes uphill to work rather than take a bus when I don't have access to a car!
:p
Lighter cars are definitely the way to go as fuel prices increase. In places with good weather and good drivers (nowhere?) then 100% motorcycles could be good - with sidecars or trailers for families
which is totally what she said
Furthermore, you compare the best case efficiency of small plants (diesels-electrics attaining 30% efficiency) with what is almost the worst case for large plants (45% at the generator and 30% after distribution). This is inappropriate for a number of reasons. First of all, transmission losses only average around 7% in the US. Even with fairly old power stations supplying the electricity this compares well with modern diesel prime movers. Modern power stations, on the other hand, can achieve efficiencies of almost 60% and can scrub the exhaust gasses of practically everything except CO2. Additionally, as you suggest, advanced nations get a fair amount of their electricity from non-fossil fuels. Over 30% of America's base load power generation releases practically no emissions into the atmosphere.
Finally, expecting long haul freight and express passenger service to share tracks is ridiculous. This is only done in the US to maximize utilization of small investments in infrastructure. Even local routes where freight and passenger service may run on the same lines, the efficiency of the system is only lacking with respect to rail transportation on dedicated lines. In the worst case scenario (steam engines on the local lines?) passenger rail will still beat individual vehicles for efficiency and emissions.
BTW, the factor that is driving up SUV use is not fear of commercial vehicles, but rather fear of other SUVs. Commercial vehicles, particularly in the US, are driven by skilled professionals whose actions almost NEVER result in accidents. SUV drivers, on the other hand, tend to be far from professional. Feeling secure in their Hummer, they are comfortable in treating driving as a full contact sport.
European truck surround their wheels with astroturf-lined flaps that keep spray down. I do not see much in the way of road spray suppression gear around the tires of tractors and trailers in the USA. The only reason I can think for this is that encasing the wheels would lead to heat-build up, which is more likely to be a problem in the USA's hotter climate.