Live data from Hacker News

On Trucking

snowingpine.com

31–40 of 113 posts

Re: On Trucking

#31
The Odd Lots podcast recently did two episodes on US trucking that were interesting. The first with an actual trucker, "The Trucking Episode: Why the Industry Is Such a Mess":

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trucking-episode-w...

* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/the-trucking-episode-why-the-...

Interesting observations on tracking in that episode:

> Gord: (23:44) […] So they regulate the drivers, right? And there's going to be another book being published next month by an academic at Cornell named Karen Levy, which is called “Data Driven: Truckers, Technology and the New Workplace Surveillance.” And she has spent 10 years studying like the effects of all of the regulatory imposition on the driver through surveillance technology, driver-facing cameras, ELDs, all of this stuff that's meant to regulate us because of the public's fear of, you know, drivers driving tired over their hours, all this stuff, which is an effect of the fact that the market's been pummeled by deregulation. So there's this regulation question, but it's not looked at correctly, that they've deregulated the market, but they just moved the regulation from the operations of the companies and the rating and the business side of it, and they've moved all the regulation onto the operations and onto the driver, which is another reason people wash out.

> Because if you're somebody like me who's been in the business my entire life, my dad was a trucker, both my uncles were truckers, my grandpa was a trucker. I was helping mechanics fix trucks and driving around when I was a teenager after school. And I'm one of the sort of last of the big game hunters. I know what I'm doing. If somebody is a professional and knows what they're doing, they don't want to be told how to do their job by some human resources harridan, or a health and safety pencil neck person that's breathing down their neck. And that's a factor.

> Another thing, and this applies to more than just trucking, is like the psychology of people who work for a living. Most people that work for a living just want to do their jobs and be left alone. And we have this management mentality where like every single thing has to be done exactly as the computer models tell us and as safe as possible. And they're trying to impose theory on material reality and it drives the people actually doing the work insane. So, you know, you want to end driver churn and driver retention? One of the factors causing that is that they've overregulated the people doing the work rather than the people in charge of the markets in which the work is being done. Does that make any sense?

> Joe: (27:20) Yeah, and that's an incredible point, and I hadn't really thought about this before, this idea that it’s like, okay, the business of trucking, the business of pay, etc., [it’s] increasingly deregulated even as more burden gets shifted to the driver in the truck and the idea of monitoring. And so essentially sort of redistributing the imposition of where the regulation happens. […]

And just in the last week or so a second episode, "What Truckers Already Know About the Future of Electronic Worker Surveillance", with a researcher that just published a book on the industry:

* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/what-truckers-already-know-ab...

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-truckers-already-...

> Long-haul truckers are the backbone of the American economy, transporting goods under grueling conditions and immense economic pressure. Truckers have long valued the day-to-day independence of their work, sharing a strong occupational identity rooted in a tradition of autonomy. Yet these workers increasingly find themselves under many watchful eyes. Data Driven examines how digital surveillance is upending life and work on the open road, and raises crucial questions about the role of data collection in broader systems of social control.

* https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175300/da...

* https://www.karen-levy.net

Re: On Trucking

#32

The article claims about 3 million truck tractors on US roads, and puts the cost of each driver at about $65k/year. Am I correct in naively calculating something like $200B/year on the table for full-self-driving truck technology?

That’s what is at stake, but monetization will be less than that valuation because Level 5 autonomy roughly expands capacity 3X (bots don’t sleep), so there likely will be somewhat less monetized value.

Might need to add the capex of equipment costs, and subtract the externalities costs of increases wear and tear on infrastructure and equipment.

Re: On Trucking

#33

Relevant John McPhee article from a couple of decades ago: https://archive.md/5GIIg He rode across the country with an owner operator, and he tells the story. "A true truck has eighteen wheels, or more. From Atlanta and Charlotte to North Powder, Oregon, this was the first time that Ainsworth had so much as tapped his air horn. In three thousand one hundred and ninety miles I rode with him he used it four times. He g…

What a great article! Thank you for linking to it.

I love the ambiguity of the last sentence you quoted. I won't spoil it for others; just go read the article, it's that good.

Fair warning: it is long form journalism, of the best kind. Give yourself some time to savor it.

Re: On Trucking

#35

Pet peeve: every time I get on the interstate I think they should have driven 90% of the 18-wheelers on to a train. Or at least have tracking software that fines them heavily for leaving the slow lanem

That’s rich coming from a 4wheeler. And why do you think they sometimes enter the fast lane? ( which is legal in many roads and some circumstances)

Re: On Trucking

#37

Super interesting analysis of the trucking market. A couple of questions would be: * At what speed is the industry going to embrace self-driving / "augmented driving" in trucks? I'd imagine a driver would still be required at the wheel in case of emergencies for the foreseeable future. What new skills would truckers have to learn? * Given the environmental impact of trucking (self-driving or not), what are some inter…

> I'd imagine a driver would still be required at the wheel in case of emergencies for the foreseeable future.

Yes, and manual work for on/off-loading or even paper work is still not uncommon. I can imagine that self-driving on long highways will come as a first step to avoid longer stops (no sleep time required) or to avoid a second driver.

> Clearly, given the cut-throat nature of the business, there would necessarily need to be a revenue impact otherwise no one is going to use the proposition.

I was wondering why route optimization wasn't mentioned in the post. Lot's of innovation happened in the past years. (With "route optimization" I mean both, the route selection between two points and also optimization of the order of multiple stops.)

Re: On Trucking

#38

Relevant John McPhee article from a couple of decades ago: https://archive.md/5GIIg He rode across the country with an owner operator, and he tells the story. "A true truck has eighteen wheels, or more. From Atlanta and Charlotte to North Powder, Oregon, this was the first time that Ainsworth had so much as tapped his air horn. In three thousand one hundred and ninety miles I rode with him he used it four times. He g…

> She was riding in a convertible and her top was down.

Now that is a great ambiguous sentence.

Re: On Trucking

#39

The article claims about 3 million truck tractors on US roads, and puts the cost of each driver at about $65k/year. Am I correct in naively calculating something like $200B/year on the table for full-self-driving truck technology?

The $65k (plus/minus bits and pieces) is then consequently also the cap on the additional costs of the self-driving tech and operations per truck. It's not necessarily obvious to me that we'll be there in the next few years.

Also, some of the easy use cases for potential self-driving tech have - at least in the US - already been put on rail which is in a sense almost a self-driving truck. In my view one of the major opportunities missing for making trucking more cost competitive and reducing the societal impact of trucking (emissions, road wear, less than desirable work conditions for truck drivers) is to move more and more freight onto rail. The US is quite good at it actually, but in particular Europe needs to get their act together on it.

Post reply on HN