Uber Study Says Self-Driving Trucks Will Result In More Truck Drivers, Not Less (theatlantic.com)

_Sharp'r_ writes: According to a new study by Uber's Advanced Technology Group, widespread adoption of self-driving trucks would happen primarily on long-haul routes. The increase in efficiency would lead to more goods being trucked, causing enough additional local delivery routes driven by humans to overall increase the need for truck drivers. Driver contracts may need to be updated to pay for more time spent waiting/delivering instead of physically driving. "Uber does not believe that self-driving trucks will be doing 'dock to dock' runs for a very long time," reports The Atlantic. "They see a future in which self-driving trucks drive highway miles between what they call transfer hubs, where human drivers will take over for the last miles through complex urban and industrial terrain."

As for how Uber came to this conclusion, they created a model of the industry's labor market based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. "Then, they created scenarios that looked at a range of self-driving-truck adoption rates and how often those autonomous trucks would be on the road in comparison to human-driven vehicles," reports The Atlantic. Uber also calculated the utilization rate of the self-driving trucks. "Basically, if the self-driving trucks are used far more efficiently, it would drive down the cost of freight, which would stimulate demand, leading to more business," reports The Atlantic. "And, if more freight is out on the roads, and humans are required to run it around local areas, then there will be a greater, not lesser, need for truck drivers."

Comments

Anyone checked this?

[mhkohne]

Has anyone reputable checked their work? Because after all that Uber has done, I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if they fudged the numbers.

or we could ship by rail.

[Anonymous Coward]

and avoid the road congestion, and wear/tear on our publicly funded roads.

or we could continue to set up our tax policy to favor subsidizing the trucking industry. Trucks should only be used for short deliveries and the start/beginnings of journeys to/from depots.

Re: or we could ship by rail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly the point I was going to state. This is known science and the solution was rail. Hub and spoke main lines. Local distributor from fixed points.

Trucking arise from the belief Rockefeller and his family needed to sell more oil. Rail was too efficient for them to make more money so it had to die. Nothing more.

Not good, even if I believe their numbers

[Hasaf]

Here is the problem, truck drivers make a descent middle class wage. They also support a wide number of ancillary jobs. There are also a large number of regulations in place to insure their, and the public's safety.

Uber is, essentially, saying that nearly all of them can all become delivery drivers. The trouble there is that delivery drivers are often contract employees who, when all costs are considered, frequently earn less than the minimum wage. The also, frequently work more hours than is safe. Everyone pays for this.

So, the best case is that we strip people out of one of the largest industries in America, and put them into sub minimum wag jobs. This ignores that the economy is driven by aggregate spending. Sure, for a while it looks good as prices are driven down and efficiency goes up. As long as people take on debt, trying to avoid the loss in lifestyle that will eventually come. However, the bill eventually comes due, we saw that in the Global Financial Crisis.

We are seeing a slow train wreck and denying that it is crashing. This is happening because we, as a society, want to hold onto the myth that is "the magic of markets." The markets have never been able to work when left alone. The faith that they will, this time, is misguided.