Autonomous trucks are not replacing truck drivers; they are altering the driving job. Just after the self-driving trucks were introduced, a debate started over whether the technology will put truckers out of work or help to solve a labor shortage as the trucking industry has struggled for lack of trailers, eighteen-wheelers, and buses drivers for the last 15 years.
The Truck Driver Shortage Analysis 2017 published by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) highlighted the driver shortfall was about 36,500 drivers in 2016 and reached their highest level at the end of the last year: surpassing 50,000 drivers. The ATA, which advocates for truckers, forecasted a shortage of over 174,000 truck drivers by 2026. According to their analysis, there are many factors for the current driver shortage, one of them is linked to the high average age of the existing workforce: between 49 and 52. Another factor is related to diversity: just 6% of truck drivers in 2016 were women, and almost 40% of drivers were minorities back in the same year. In addition, many motor carriers are being highly selective in hiring qualified drivers as safety and professionalism is a top priority.
The trucking industry could learn from the innovations technology has driven in other sectors and look how it can help solve some of trucking’s biggest pains. In the past, some drivers used to travel in tandem with another operator, trading off between driving and sleeping. In theory, autonomous trucks could help with the driver shortage because they will not be entirely driverless for quite some time, for myriad safety concerns; a person will need to be in the driver’s seat even if he/she is not actually driving, similar to the tandem. That does not entirely solve the personnel problem, but it helps with the cargo-transportation demands of the $676 billion American trucking industry before it becomes a real supply-chain crisis as above 70% of all freight tonnage is moved on the US highways.
Both automated and semi-autonomous trucks (being developed by technology companies like Tesla, Uber, Daimler, Peloton, and Embark) could fill some of the gaps to reduce the shortage. Self-driving trucks might also diminish efforts to train new drivers, causing a less of a pipeline to fill jobs that could induce yet more autonomous trucks... and so on, until human truck drivers are not a thing anymore.
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