Slashdot Mirror
Daimler Tests a Self-Driving Truck On the Autobahn
Engadget reports that Daimler has tested an autonomous truck in one environment guaranteed to put stress on any car: the German Autobahn. While the Mercedes Actros truck was guided with a mix of "radar, a stereo camera array and off-the-shelf systems like adaptive cruise control," there was a human crew on hand, too, just in case. From the article: This doesn't mean you'll see fleets of robotic trucks in the near future. Daimler had to get permission for this run, and the law (whether European or otherwise) still isn't equipped to permit regular autonomous driving of any sort, let alone for giant cargo haulers. Still, this could make a better case for approving some form of self-driving transportation.
It's harder than you're probably giving it credit for, especially for miles-long freight trains, where a hill can mean one segment of the train is accelerating while another is decelerating. We're just about there, though, insofar as we have software that automatically drives throttle, brakes, and other controls. Link:
Norfolk Southern, an American rail operator, now pulls roughly one-sixth of its freight using locomotives equipped with "route optimisation" software. By crunching numbers on a train's weight distribution and a route's curves, grades and speed limits, the software, called Leader, can instruct operators on optimum accelerating and braking to minimise fuel costs. Installing the software and linking it wirelessly to back-office computers is expensive, says Coleman Lawrence, head of the company's 4,000-strong locomotive fleet. But the software cuts costs dramatically, reducing fuel consumption by about 5%. That is a big deal for a firm that spent $1.6 billion on diesel in 2012. Mr Lawrence reckons that by 2016 Norfolk Southern may be pulling half its freight with Leader-upgraded locomotives. A competing system sold by GE, Trip Optimizer, goes further and operates the throttle and brakes automatically.
DATABASE WOW WOW
It is about cost.
Lets say there are 100k drivers for a train. They are about a median of 50k each. Or about 5 billion a year in cost.
There are ~1.7 million drivers of trucks with an median of ~40k each. Or about 68 billion a year. With another 1.3 billion doing short load delivery (about 32 billion)
Trains are actually fairly much automated at this point. With the driver being the final say. Their job is mostly inspection and kicking kids off.
Trucks are not even close in cost and cost 12x as much.
To underestimate how much automated trucks will inside out the industry is not to really understand it. This will wildy reduce accidents. The number of people injured by trains is tiny compared to the 80-100k per year with trucks (about 4-5k per year).
Also they will fully automate the trains but the guys will stay on them. Inspection still takes eyes on site. Trucks will follow a similar method. With a guy sitting in a seat doing pretty much nothing for 10-12 hours at a time. Other than maybe pumping some gas in the tank or doing some load/unload on the ends. It will be a cheap shit job.
To underestimate how much automated trucks will inside out the industry is not to really understand it. This will wildy reduce accidents. The number of people injured by trains is tiny compared to the 80-100k per year with trucks (about 4-5k per year).
Automating trucks is great in theory: the difficulty is implementing it in practice. That's why I brought up the train example: automating freight trains is an easier task, by several orders of magnitude, and yet it hasn't been done yet. We still keep a driver on.
Couple of things...
Depending on who owns the rail infrastructure it might be difficult to get the owner to actually make the improvements that are necessary to leave the current paradigm for an autonomous one. That means that there really could be times when something has to be done manually on the rail line, or when the experienced engineer needs to change the speed or other behavior of the train to account for local conditions.
Trains, believe it or not, are allowed to operate with severe deficiencies in key systems, like brakes. That's right, there are instances when of those four locomotives pulling the train, two of them have full brake failures. I don't know what the exact ratio is, but it's rather unsettling given the mass involved, that they do not have to be in tip-top shape.
There are collisions that do not mandate that a train stop. If a train hits animal life or debris on the tracks there isn't necessarily a need to stop the train. If a train hits a person or a car or some other condition there might be a good reason to stop the train. It may be difficult to tell, in a simple automated way, what the train has struck given the mass difference of the train versus anything that it strikes short of another train.
Per given unit of freight mass being delivered, having an engineer or two on-board is still not very expensive. Factor the rest of the considerations listed and for the moment it makes sense to keep an engineer or crew onboard. Fix those, and it might be cost-effective to be automated.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Think about it. One tractor trailer driver can easily be paid 60K per year and he must get food and shelter allowances as well. The law limits his hours in the cab so unless he is breaking the law that truck will sit still at least 12 hours a day. On the other hand a machine driving the truck requires zero rest so that truck can keep rolling 24/7 with brief stops for fueling. That means operation of a truck will be reduced in cost by 60% or greater. Further the customers will get much faster delivery of their orders. Trucking companies will want this like you won't believe. Taxis will also be automated and we will probably see Uber cars automated as well. The cost of owning such a vehicle will be far lower as the vehicle can stay in constant use. So you own the vehicle and it is out earning you money every minute you are not in your car. This means that we can reduce the actual number of cars on the road vastly. Further your automated car can drop your kids off at school and then go to the grocery store and have it loaded by the bag boy and the car brings your order home. Amazon is about to start a delivery service such that products from any store can be delivered to your home. One side effect is that hundreds of thousands of jobs are about to vanish because of this technology.
Except that in Germany, the country is criss-crossed by train lines.
My little village has a station of its own, served several times a day. I can (and have) gotten in the train and with only one transfer, gone to Berlin, Paris and London. What you say is probably true in the US but not here.
Also, when you say controlled-access highways, please remember, this is the Autobahn, and yes, people do drive 230 kmh (trucks are limited to 100). Most people would like to have fewer trucks, simply because of the speed differential.