November 17, 2016                                                                          Issue #140
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Carman O'Leary, Editor
Allen Lund Company
Marcom - Los Angeles Office
(800) 475-LUND (5863)
Autonomous Trucking May Be Useful
While Uber was ferrying Pennsylvanians around in the limelight this summer they were lurking in the shadows of the trucking industry as well. Uber bought out trucking company Otto (a San Francisco startup) and subsequently made the country's first self-driven delivery. An Otto autonomous truck took a truckload of Budweiser, 120 highway miles from Fort Collins, Colorado to Colorado Springs, Colorado. The technology worked flawlessly while the driver lounged in the cab.
Laser technology employed by cameras mounted outside the truck and radar on the bumpers allow computers installed inside the cab to detect everything that is needed to help steer the truck on the highway. This technology is being referred to as "exit to exit" and employs a driver as a sort of tug boat pilot, taking the rig in and out of port. The technology is not only intriguing, but addresses two huge concerns in the industry; safety and lack of drivers.
The American Trucking Association has estimated that the industry currently is short about 48,000 drivers for the amount of freight that needs to be hauled annually. Self-driving trucks may be able to help address this issue by substantially shortening drivers' time at the wheel and therefore downtime between loads. In the case of safety, statistics show that annually almost 400,000 trucks here in the U.S. are involved in crashes, killing nearly 4,000 people. This is a statistic that self-driving trucks could possibly avoid, while computers don't fall victim to the slew of circumstances a human must endure on the long-haul.
Regardless of opinion on the topic, it seems that the technology for autonomous trucking is here; the question is, how will it end up affecting the industry as a whole?


Keven Sommerville
Detroit, Broker Assistant
Keven Sommerville started with the Allen Lund Company Detroit office in 2016. Sommerville earned a BS in International Affairs from Eastern Michigan University. 









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