XPO | Only A Matter of Time Before Self-Driving Trucks come our Way?

Australia Expands Use of Caterpillar’s Self-Driving Truck Technology

The shovels are operated by workers who cue up an automated dump truck to haul away the debris as another dump truck idles nearby for its turn.

Utilizing 64 lasers in a bulb attached to the trucks, Lidar technology creates a 3D image for the trucks to see anything in their path, explained Sean McGinnis, production manager of Caterpillar’s Mining Technology Enabled Solutions.

Upon arriving at the dump site, the driverless trucks back up to the berm to unload. Once empty, the truck pulls forward while simultaneously lowering the bed — something that a manned truck cannot do because it is jolting to a driver, McGinnis said.

- Transport Topics
 
It is a dog eat dog world. I have six years until I am 65 and ready to retire. I will also have the rule of 85 in the bag. I am going to be alright. As for the rest of you guys... haha. Good luck.
 
I heard the self driving trucks will be for Linehaul, makes more sense than using them for p&d.
I would love to see an automated truck venture into the city of Chicago for a day of P&D. It would be hilarious to watch. Between our crazy drivers, low bridges, tight docks, narrow streets, etc. It would be a sight to see.
 
Australia Expands Use of Caterpillar’s Self-Driving Truck Technology

The shovels are operated by workers who cue up an automated dump truck to haul away the debris as another dump truck idles nearby for its turn.

Utilizing 64 lasers in a bulb attached to the trucks, Lidar technology creates a 3D image for the trucks to see anything in their path, explained Sean McGinnis, production manager of Caterpillar’s Mining Technology Enabled Solutions.

Upon arriving at the dump site, the driverless trucks back up to the berm to unload. Once empty, the truck pulls forward while simultaneously lowering the bed — something that a manned truck cannot do because it is jolting to a driver, McGinnis said.

- Transport Topics
As fascinating as this is, a quarry or pit mine isn't the same as the open road. And these haul trucks don't have to be programmed to avoid anything because haul trucks have the right of way in these closed environments. This pathfinding technology isn't new, either. I've seen one fitted to an off-road military truck...it still wasn't capable of beating a human in a Range Rover.
 
What’s 85 in the bag mean?

Rule of 85 concerns pension benefits. Rule of 85 is age of employee added to years of service with company. When that total equals 85 or more the employee can file for pension benefits. If that employee is covered under the pension plan.
 
I would love to see an automated truck venture into the city of Chicago for a day of P&D. It would be hilarious to watch. Between our crazy drivers, low bridges, tight docks, narrow streets, etc. It would be a sight to see.
Not happening anytime soon. I’m not saying never just not in the near future.
 
I would love to see an automated truck venture into the city of Chicago for a day of P&D. It would be hilarious to watch. Between our crazy drivers, low bridges, tight docks, narrow streets, etc. It would be a sight to see.



You see the first self driving bus in Las Vegas got in a wreck already ? Big truck backing down into an alley. And the bus just sat there. A computer sensing objects in lanes is not the same as putting together the event and what is happening.


http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/09/technology/self-driving-bus-accident-las-vegas/index.html


https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/self-driving-bus-crash-vegas-account/#/3
 
Ohio Bus Drivers Fear Push Toward Self-Driving Vehicles Could Reduce Jobs, Safety

“Bus drivers keep you safe,” said Andrew Jordan, president of Transport Workers Union Local 208, at a Statehouse news conference on Dec. 6.

Jordan says any exploration of self-driving buses should be done with safety in mind and an awareness that any job losses at COTA would disproportionately affect the black community, which makes up a large share of drivers.

“To displace the well-paying middle-class jobs in those communities would be devastating,” he said.

The Ohio House panel also heard from Tom Balzer, president and CEO of the Ohio Trucking Association, a trade group for companies involved with trucking and warehousing.

“There is a gap between the Hollywood version of autonomous vehicles and what they could be, and what they are in reality,” he said in an interview. “There are reports about truck drivers are going to lose their jobs in the next year. That’s not even close to true.”

Balzer has concerns that talk about the loss of drivers’ jobs will discourage people from being drivers at a time when the industry is going through a labor shortage.

- Transport Topics
 
Ohio Bus Drivers Fear Push Toward Self-Driving Vehicles Could Reduce Jobs, Safety

“Bus drivers keep you safe,” said Andrew Jordan, president of Transport Workers Union Local 208, at a Statehouse news conference on Dec. 6.

Jordan says any exploration of self-driving buses should be done with safety in mind and an awareness that any job losses at COTA would disproportionately affect the black community, which makes up a large share of drivers.

“To displace the well-paying middle-class jobs in those communities would be devastating,” he said.

The Ohio House panel also heard from Tom Balzer, president and CEO of the Ohio Trucking Association, a trade group for companies involved with trucking and warehousing.

“There is a gap between the Hollywood version of autonomous vehicles and what they could be, and what they are in reality,” he said in an interview. “There are reports about truck drivers are going to lose their jobs in the next year. That’s not even close to true.”

Balzer has concerns that talk about the loss of drivers’ jobs will discourage people from being drivers at a time when the industry is going through a labor shortage.

- Transport Topics


I am fine with them running their mouths. I like knowing there are people begging for my services and willing to pay me to do this work.
 
WHY TESLA'S AUTOPILOT CAN'T SEE A STOPPED FIRETRUCK


This surprisingly non-deadly debacle also raises a technical question: How is it possible that one of the most advanced driving systems on the planet doesn't see a freaking fire truck, dead ahead?

In other words, your Volvo ( or any vehicle with adaptive cruise control ) won't brake to avoid hitting a stopped car that suddenly appears up ahead. It might even accelerate towards it.

The same is true for any car currently equipped with adaptive cruise control, or automated emergency braking. It sounds like a glaring flaw, the kind of horrible mistake engineers race to eliminate. Nope. These systems are designed to ignore static obstacles because otherwise, they couldn't work at all.

Raj Rajkumar, who researches autonomous driving at Carnegie Mellon University, thinks those assumptions concern one of Tesla's key sensors. “The radars they use are apparently meant for detecting moving objects (as typically used in adaptive cruise control systems), and seem to be not very good in detecting stationary objects," he says.

WIRED.com
 
WHY TESLA'S AUTOPILOT CAN'T SEE A STOPPED FIRETRUCK


This surprisingly non-deadly debacle also raises a technical question: How is it possible that one of the most advanced driving systems on the planet doesn't see a freaking fire truck, dead ahead?

In other words, your Volvo ( or any vehicle with adaptive cruise control ) won't brake to avoid hitting a stopped car that suddenly appears up ahead. It might even accelerate towards it.

The same is true for any car currently equipped with adaptive cruise control, or automated emergency braking. It sounds like a glaring flaw, the kind of horrible mistake engineers race to eliminate. Nope. These systems are designed to ignore static obstacles because otherwise, they couldn't work at all.

Raj Rajkumar, who researches autonomous driving at Carnegie Mellon University, thinks those assumptions concern one of Tesla's key sensors. “The radars they use are apparently meant for detecting moving objects (as typically used in adaptive cruise control systems), and seem to be not very good in detecting stationary objects," he says.

WIRED.com
Go point but the damm system we use will surly jam the brake on a stop car. I driven a truck were the rader was out of line and when I came up to an intersection with a stop car in a left turn lane ( I was going straight) I took my foot off the gas and the system jam the brakes throwing me up on the steering wheel and set off the camera. Also our cruise does the same thing
 
Go point but the damm system we use will surly jam the brake on a stop car. I driven a truck were the rader was out of line and when I came up to an intersection with a stop car in a left turn lane ( I was going straight) I took my foot off the gas and the system jam the brakes throwing me up on the steering wheel and set off the camera. Also our cruise does the same thing
432-0361 radar picks up objects randomly on day line haul run going through Dayton . shop or dealer hasn't been able to keep it from activating brakes,un expectantly
 
432-0361 radar picks up objects randomly on day line haul run going through Dayton . shop or dealer hasn't been able to keep it from activating brakes,un expectantly
I drove one that did the same thing. The radar is out of alignment. When I drove it I noticed it would pick up objects to the left and lock the brakes up, for instance a vehicle in the left turn lane. Have the alignment checked.
 
I drove one that did the same thing. The radar is out of alignment. When I drove it I noticed it would pick up objects to the left and lock the brakes up, for instance a vehicle in the left turn lane. Have the alignment checked.


I have driven tractors that would lock up going under anything. The alignment really helps. Also. Put your foot down whenever you are nearing anything that you know will cause it to flake out. Thankfully, driver input overrides the computer.
 
Ex-Google Engineers Raise $92 Million To Roll Out Robot Delivery Vehicles This Year



5vW6SBo.jpg


To make that happen Nuro, co-founded by Dave Ferguson and Jiajun "JZ" Zhu, raised $92 million in Series A funding rounds led by Chinese venture firm Banyan Capital and Silicon Valley’s Greylock Partners, which counts Reid Hoffman as a partner. Mountain View, California-based Nuro is building an initial fleet of six unmanned electric vehicles about half the size of a passenger car to carry groceries, food orders, flowers, packages and boxes to homes and businesses in urban and suburban neighborhoods.

“We're hoping that this year they are providing a useful service,” Ferguson told Forbes. “Obviously, it will be a limited area, it won't be thousands of people, but we are hoping they are serving real customers.”


FORBES.com
 
Could Self-Driving Trucks Be Good for Truckers?

For one, Uber does not believe that self-driving trucks will be doing “dock to dock” runs for a very long time. 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.


IkflCJ9.jpg

One of Uber’s scenarios of self-driving trucks stimulating growth in trucking jobs (Uber)

(P)eople within the trucking industry have always been far more skeptical about the potential for job displacement. They have argued that truckers don’t just drive on highways. These jobs, in fact, require a wide variety of skills and the ability to operate in a host of unusual physical and social environments.

“There are so many things a driver does,” says Joe Rajkovacz, the director of governmental affairs and communications at the Western States Trucking Association. “I just don’t believe that you’re ever going to see, at least in the world that’s imagined right now, this fully autonomous truck without anyone in it.” For example, he pointed out that if a self-driving truck breaks down a hundred miles from nowhere, a company would have to send a tow truck out into the vast spaces of the American West, whereas an onboard driver or operator could make a variety of basic fixes and continue the trip.

The impact that self-driving trucks would have on trucking jobs seemed obvious to people typing up reports on computers about the industry: Of course, self-driving trucks would mean less truckers. But what’s clear from the trucking-industry experts is that there is a lot about the job and the industry that has not been adequately captured in the studies that predict a job apocalypse. Or as the Western States Trucking Association’s Rajkovacz, who drove a truck for nearly 30 years, says, “I got more time sitting on the :shit:ter in a truck stop than these people have spent driving trucks.”

The Atlantic.com
 
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