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Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

reuters.com

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Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#91

Post by johnnyb9 »

freehunter wrote: post #31
noer wrote: post #7

>TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of postage and other products. Really? This is exactly the kind of thing we should be spending tax dollars on. I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget but they provide a lot of valuable services in addition to…

>I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget A concentrated disinformation campaign funded by people who stand to benefit from privatizing mail delivery. It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. That means by federal mandate, the USPS is sitting…

Is a pay-as-you-go pension really a smart option if your #1 product/mandate (first class mail) is at total risk of becoming irrelevant in the near-term?

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#92

Post by Retra »

kingnothing wrote: post #60
joshgachnang wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't the junk mail where they make a ton of their money?

I'd be willing to pay to not receive it.

I would too, but I would never support that as an official policy option, due to the extortion angle.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#94

Post by ambicapter »

zaroth wrote: post #5
ru999gol wrote: post #3

I always wondered why it seems we've get automated trucks pretty soon everywhere, but there is almost no one talking about self driving trains?

The quoted costs for positive train control just seem astronomical for what is actually being achieved; > Under RSIA08, PTC is required on about 60,000 miles of railroad track. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) estimates full PTC implementation will cost approximately $14 billion. [1] I understand that everything looks simple from the outside, and these have to be rugged, reliable, redundant, and failsafe, bu…

> we’re talking about basically AEB (automatic emergency braking) for trains

How far ahead does AEB look? Because trains take miles to stop. The system is different to account for that.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#95

Post by [deleted] »

salawat wrote: post #61
throw20102010 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment is very low right now. However, the most accurate statement is always, "shortage of people that have the qualifications we want that are willing to work for the payment we're offering."

Note: Unemployment is measured through participation in various workfinding government programs or receipt of unemployment benefits. It doesn't really paint an accurate picture of how many are out of work, but getting by through alternative or illegal-quasi-legal means. It also in no way measures the number of jobs a defined unit of work can supply, or whether the job itself creates enough of a return to be economica…

[deleted]

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#96

Post by Consultant32452 »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #11
noer wrote: post #7

>TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of postage and other products. Really? This is exactly the kind of thing we should be spending tax dollars on. I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget but they provide a lot of valuable services in addition to…

Its a common misconception, and it is driven by political interests that want to dismantle public services and replace them with more expensive services that have a profit margin for themselves attached.

For me it's not a misconception. 99.99% of things delivered by USPS are spam at my house. I don't even get paper statements for any of my bills. 100% of things delivered by UPS/FedEx/etc are useful things I want to get. Every time I go to the mailbox is an encouragement to get rid of the USPS. My life would literally be better if USPS didn't exist.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#97

Post by michaelt »

ceejayoz wrote: post #71
kingnothing wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a 50 week year, that's $34k per year, or roughly $17 per hour. No wonder people don't want that job. You work completely alone driving all day for not much more than minimum wage.

Huh? $17/hour is 230% of the Federal minimum wage, and 148% more than the highest state-level minimum in the country (Washington).

That's because kingnothing assumed a 40-hour week, while bluedino said "he's home every 2 weeks"

If you assume he's driving the FMCSA limit of 60 hours in 7 consecutive days, the hourly wage is lower. And if you count all the time he's away from home, it's lower still. And he's paying for truck stop food and sleeping in his cab to boot.

And a far cry from the reports of $73,000 reported in some sources [1]

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/09/news/economy/truck-driver-s...

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#98

Post by MegaButts »

esilver wrote: post #90
lm28469 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A monitor can be paid less than a driver, as they’re doing less work People working full time still need to live you know, even if it's "less work". Last time I checked the "amount" of work doesn't really correlate with the pay too. You can't tell a professional truck driver "Ok man, you'll be in the same seat, on the same road, for the same amount of time but you get $500 instead of $1500 because it's less work, o…

What drivers are paid for a given load reflects market conditions like e.g., weather, truck availability, and load availability, more than anything else. Automating large parts of the driving process would make the job easier and more desirable. More people would be willing to work as monitors, which would increase truck availability and lower rates. There’s also the possibility that a monitor could do other work whi…

How can the monitor do other things if he is expected to have full situational awareness at a moment's notice in case something goes wrong, when you have no idea if or when that might happen?

All the studies say this is actually more dangerous, which is why Waymo abandoned L3 development years ago when they discovered their safety drivers were falling asleep at the wheel. And there's the infamous Uber death which is well documented and analyzed.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#99

Post by ghaff »

Symbiote wrote: post #86
dexen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flipside to it is, during slow hours you still have the robot at the ready to help the odd guest. The robot just sitting there generates virtually no costs (bar the minuscule amount of electricity to maintain situational awareness), while at the same time freeing humans to do more important tasks. Which may very well be family and social life.

You could also just have lockers.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a hotel with lockers. Part of it is probably not wanting to become a public luggage storage facility. The other is probably that, while lockers work well for modest-sized carryons, once you get into bigger suitcases like a lot of people travel with, you can't really lift them up to a locker that's off the ground.

Lockers (or luggage storage generally outside of hotels) are, in general, pretty scarce in the US--and at least a lot of Europe in my experience. It's one of the things that makes a regular hotel pretty handy; I can drop off my luggage the day I arrive or leave and not have to restrict my activities until it's time to checkin or depart.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#100

Post by zerocrates »

salawat wrote: post #61
throw20102010 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment is very low right now. However, the most accurate statement is always, "shortage of people that have the qualifications we want that are willing to work for the payment we're offering."

Note: Unemployment is measured through participation in various workfinding government programs or receipt of unemployment benefits. It doesn't really paint an accurate picture of how many are out of work, but getting by through alternative or illegal-quasi-legal means. It also in no way measures the number of jobs a defined unit of work can supply, or whether the job itself creates enough of a return to be economica…

The US federal government uses a monthly survey to compute unemployment statistics; it doesn't just tally up people receiving unemployment benefits.
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