Western Railroad Discussion > Driverless Trucks at Scale Coming

A good article on self driving trucks coming on a mass scale coming below. In the latest Trains Magazine there is also an article on Uber Freight being one of the largest trucking companies now. All this technology linking truck carriers to loads and research for trucks and highways as railroads get left behind in technology. If they pull this off with large fleets of self driving trucks there no reason they can't employ the technology to get rid of crews on railroads.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aurora-continental-nvidia-partner-deploy-040000749.html

Somewhat related to this was the news this morning that Bill Gates just made a major investment in transportaton. $100 million in Paccar, which builds Peterbuilt and Kenworth trucks and $273 million in Fedex. 

I can see the headline now ...... "Driverless truck gets hit by unmanned train."

Bill Miller
Galt, ON

The headline should read.  "Company recieves, and wastes millions of taxpayer fund on something not ready for primetime."

Eng.Shadetree

Even if the driver is eliminated from the equation, you still have wear an tear on the highways, much lower fuel efficiency, and highway congestion problems, not to mention safety issues.

An effort needs to be made to get the trucks off of the highways. We need a quick and efficient way to load and unload your everyday truck on and off of a railroad car and frequent intermodal services.

Railroads as currently structured have no interest in providing such a solution.

Telsa's truck factory next to giga factory outside of Reno is rapidly being built.  You often see prototypes on the road out by the industrial park. 

 

So what states allow driverless trucks on public highways?

shadetree Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The headline should read.  "Company recieves, and
> wastes millions of taxpayer fund on something not
> ready for primetime."
>
> Eng.Shadetree

so true.

ts1457 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Even if the driver is eliminated from the
> equation, you still have wear an tear on the
> highways, much lower fuel efficiency, and highway
> congestion problems, not to mention safety
> issues.
>
> An effort needs to be made to get the trucks off
> of the highways. We need a quick and efficient way
> to load and unload your everyday truck on and off
> of a railroad car and frequent intermodal
> services.
>
> Railroads as currently structured have no interest
> in providing such a solution.

No matter how hard you fight it and disagree ts1457, "If you bought it... a TRUCK brought it.
 

PHall we have driverless trucks on the interstate here in AZ between Tucson and Phoenix.

dash944cw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No matter how hard you fight it and disagree
> ts1457, "If you bought it... a TRUCK brought it.

I am not sure what your point is. I did not say put the cargo in a box car. I didn't even say no to driverless trucks. I just pointed out other reasons for intermodal even if the move was driverless.

Of course, I am not talking about local trucking, but a line haul long enough to offer savings by making it intermodal.

The ONLY REASON a truck brought it was the container was stacked on another on a train

easier to pilot a long distance train by computer than a truck

Florida East Coast runs a nice business every day hauling trailers 350 miles between Jacksonville and Miami. Most trains have a cut or two of TOFC.

Posted from Android

CCMF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can see the headline now ...... "Driverless
> truck gets hit by unmanned train."

. . . investigated by a RoboCop.

TAW

It appears we are creating life!

OK , maybe set the hostility aside and look a few years into the economic future. 

Do we end up with local networks of (electric, limited range) robo trucks connected to networks of (electric from catenary, thus unlimited range) rail based for long distance moves? Presumably, the trains will be robotrains also:  geez, if you can get a computer to drive your truck through urban traffic, then you should be able to get it to run a train. 

The foreigners will cut the freight rate so drastic that it will be back to diesel Volvo's hauling for next to nothing while watching movies on their phone or iPad. Oh, and do it with government assistance. 

No one ever thought the RR's would lose coal so fast, but here we are.

I don't believe robotrucks will take over, but........if they do.........what will the RR's do with alot less intermodal??

Are they looking at their more profitable carload business with fresh eyes??  

I believe driverless trucks are just a straw man argument by the railroad industry so they can justify driverless trains with no "watchman" on board. So far driverless technologies have been proven unreliable and deadly in four wheeled vehicles, and that only gets compounded with larger vehicles. You won't find driverless trucks running around in the snow, they would be in the ditch faster than Yakmied from Pakistan. Trucking can't just be a fairweather industry.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/25 15:47 by funnelfan.