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

Posted by BeauHD on from the more-the-merrier dept.

_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."

17 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Anyone checked this? by mhkohne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
    1. Re: Anyone checked this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      It seems counterintuitive, but remember, ATMs didnâ(TM)t kill the local banker; they number of banking cashiers and customer service personnel has skyrocketed.

    2. Re: Anyone checked this? by q_e_t · · Score: 3

      Are you being sarcastic?

    3. Re:Anyone checked this? by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't assume their numbers are fudged. I would assume their assumptions are flawed. Driving down the cost of freight spurring demand would be relevant if last mile freight was even remotely something that limited the purchase of goods.

    4. Re:Anyone checked this? by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 2

      Has anyone reputable checked their work?

      From The Atlantic article:

      In the end, every expert I talked to for this story, from the teamsters to academia, believes that the broad strokes of Uber’s analysis have some merit and represent a potential positive path for autonomous trucking to play in the labor market.

      You know a staff writer for a left-wing magazine who is (for example) the author of "Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology" is going to do anything they can to come up with arguments to dispute Uber's study. He talked to the Teamsters Union and left-wing academics and couldn't find anyone who could find big flaws in the study.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  2. or we could ship by rail. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re: or we could ship by rail. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  3. Not good, even if I believe their numbers by Hasaf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not good, even if I believe their numbers by hipp5 · · Score: 2

      Here is the problem, truck drivers make a descent middle class wage.

      And yet, not enough people want to do this job: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/09/576752327/trucking-industry-struggles-with-growing-driver-shortage

    2. Re:Not good, even if I believe their numbers by vtcodger · · Score: 2

      "Markets work just fine when left alone."

      You're kidding, right? Let me quote Michael Crichton

      ""... the fact is, free markets don't provide safety. Only regulation does that. You want safe food, you better have inspectors. You want safe water, you better have an EPA. You want a safe stock market, you better have the SEC. And you want safe airlines, you better regulate them, too." M Crichton, Airframe,1996"

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    3. Re:Not good, even if I believe their numbers by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let me quote Michael Crichton

      Because when you need bulletproof economic analysis, you should always go to a fiction writer.

    4. Re:Not good, even if I believe their numbers by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't think so.

      The trucking business has been sub replacement-rate on drivers for at least a dozen years - since substantially before the 2007 crash. If truck drivers were making a "decent middle class wage" this wouldn't be the case. Route pricing has been flat for a decade and the industry itself is in a somewhat-ridiculous 28th quarter of contraction with 000's (yes, thousands) of trucking companies shuttering every quarter. (Note, most of these of course are single-person or 2-person "companies" of course. But there's a decent number of actual corps in that carnage too.)

      Older, experienced drivers have ALREADY largely left the business. Your typical truck driver today is an immigrant with something less than 30 hours of road time under his belt.

      I can certainly see the long-haul trucking business being automated, with trucks discharging into 'pools' outside metro areas, for a local 'pilot' to hop in and do the in-town delivery. That seems simple and makes perfect sense. You are right that 'courier' drivers do often make minimum wage or less, particularly when one considers the terrible sharecropping-equivalent lease-to-own programs they use to hook the ignorant. But local semi-truck drivers are a different deal: that's a pretty highly sought-after gig because you get a salary (not paid per mile like long-haulers, who have seen a direct cut to their income by about 30-40% thanks to Obama-era new safety requirements and ELD) and you get to have a home and family you see. Until now, the demand for them has largely been flat (no trucking company lives on local deliveries; it's all longhaul).

      What I think is interesting is IF this model goes into effect, this will incentivize the largest corporations to build their plants very remotely, near major arteries but far outside of urban development...in that sense, they could operate their own 'pools' and be an actual node on the system, meaning no need for the local delivery - but where would they get employees? And they'd still ultimately need to deliver their product into metropolises to the consumers.

      Economy-shaking, for sure.

      --
      -Styopa
    5. Re:Not good, even if I believe their numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Read the quote and understand it. Is it wrong? If so, debate why instead of pulling an ad hominem.

  4. "Fewer", not "less" by ThaumaTechnician · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This and an earlier story confirm Slashdot eschews editors.

  5. Might not be bad by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

    Uber is, essentially, saying that nearly all of them can all become delivery drivers.

    No, actually the article is saying that their jobs will change to involve less driving. As the article points out you need someone onboard the truck to make the occasional minor repair to keep things going. You do not want to have to send a tow truck hundreds of miles into the middle of nowhere for something really minor. The other thing which the article does not mention is security: thieves would probably find an automated truck very easy to stop and loot.

    What the article suggests is that truckers jobs will change. Instead of driving the long distances they can just go to sleep in their cab and wake up near the destination for the fiddly driving in a city and the delivery/pickup. This could make things safer by avoiding truckers driving late when tired just to make a delivery on time. They will still need the same driving skills and will still spend time away from families and those are the reasons they get paid a decent wage.

  6. Trains by ArtemaOne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So automated trucks traveling between hubs, and trucks delivering from there. Sounds like we have trains already. Why not expand those to avoid putting traffic on the freeway?

  7. driverless trucks by ohgary · · Score: 2

    Your going to need last mile drivers, smart trucks are a great way to move freight 24x7 between terminals but terminal to destination in heavy traffic and every changing delivery locations really needs a human.