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Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

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Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#181

Post by teemwerk »

dahart wrote: post #158
lawguy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hell one of the reasons passenger trains is shit in the US is that passenger rail does not get priority over freight They do have priority: > (c) Preference over freight transportation. -- Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing... http://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-49…

Passenger rail is supposed to have priority by law, but in practice they don't always get it. Freight carriers don't always yield, enough so that there are ongoing legal battles. You can check Amtrak's historical On-Time Performance and causes of delay here: https://www.amtrak.com/about-amtrak/on-time-performance/ My quick sampling of ~10 trains came up with an average around 65% on-time during the last year. The onl…

The "Late Shore Limited" I've taken has on-time performance of ~50% and train interference as 50% of delays. That sounds about right.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#182

Post by photonios »

bobthepanda wrote: post #129
ktpsns wrote: post #92

The funny thing in this US-centric view is that we have such a cargo since a century where trains play the role of "self-driving cargo". In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.

The main issue has actually been prioritization. In Europe the rails are fast and well-maintained, which is great for passenger operation but expensive for very heavy freight operations. Passenger operations are also prioritized very heavily at the expense of freight operations on the rail network. In comparison, the US rail network is slow and low quality, which makes freight operations extremely attractive but is a…

I moved from western Europe to eastern Europe and public transport by train is absolutely horrible. I still hope that one day I can catch a train that arrives on schedule. We're not talking a couple of minutes delay, we're talking multiple hours. Even when the train finally departs, it'll pick up delay along the way due to poorly maintained tracks and bad scheduling. All of this turns 6 hour trips into 10 hour trips.

I am well aware that this is anecdotal. But from my point of view, not all rails are fast and well-maintained in Europe. Based on my personal experience, that statement applies to western Europe.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#183

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

hanbura wrote: post #147
iak8god wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career. Isn't it lucky we humans are so very good at predicting the future!? When I was taking computer vision courses little more than a decade ago, self driving cars were pure science fiction. Part of me hopes software development is the next job we automate away, just so everyone in forums like this who are so impressed with their own excellent li…

>Part of me hopes software development is the next job we automate away We are hard at work automating software development. Thanks to massive advances in programming language design, IDEs, the invention of module systems in combination with the massive success of OSS in that space and the proliferation of massive frameworks, something that took a year of work two decades ago is now at best a weekend project of a muc…

> Thanks to massive advances in programming language design

What massive advances in programming language design have we had since 1998!?

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#184

Post by PunchTornado »

hobofan wrote: post #70
lonelyw0lf wrote: post #42

The video ad is so crazy -- we still need a human to lock/unlock the cargo?? and its good for the truckers because they can go home early to their family?? The first part can be trivially automated and the second is just stupid. Truckers get paid per hour of work, less work == less money. AI-self-driving has arrived but to make the transition look "humane" as in the AD is crazy. Almost insults the intelligence of the…

> who have been driving our cargo around for whole generations What does that add to the argument? Is there some inherited right to work in a specific line of work? Also, how many generations can that be? 3-4?

Yeah, especially that self driving cars have been in the news for years now. Everyone know they will take over. There is plenty of time for people to retrain to something else. Unless they are lazy and don't want to...

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#185

Post by dizzystar »

nvahalik wrote: post #85
knz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the issue a lack of jobs or a lack of jobs that pay enough to prosper in our society? BLS has the mean annual income for a truck driver at $43,000 ( https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm ) versus ~ $22,000 for a personal care assistant ( https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home-health-aides-and-per... ). That's a huge difference, especially in a country with the health care system we have.

I think the main problem with the personal care assistant isn’t so much the pay is so low but rather it’s hard for people to actually pay someone full time (or even part time) to care for someone.

A full-time care taker is also often living in the house. So, even if they are are only getting paid $22k, that money isn't really going to any expenses.

They are likely getting paid more than that anyways.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#186

Post by conanbatt »

marcosdumay wrote: post #180
conanbatt wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find truly interesting of this thinking is that technological advances in the future are cataclysmic, but in the past are necessary. It never becomes something like "lets destroy all the farming machinery, so we create more jobs plowing the land".

Oh, you can rest assured that we have enough cataclysms in history to make the case. There's that entire "let's destroy all machinery that is taking your jobs" movement that gave a name to the "avoiding new things" attitude. All that in a period when people were choosing between literally dying of huger unemployed or of extenuation at work. Just because the cataclysm is temporary does not mean it didn't exist.

Would you advocate to destroy all the machinery those people clamored against today?

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#187

Post by marcosdumay »

conanbatt wrote: post #186
marcosdumay wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you can rest assured that we have enough cataclysms in history to make the case. There's that entire "let's destroy all machinery that is taking your jobs" movement that gave a name to the "avoiding new things" attitude. All that in a period when people were choosing between literally dying of huger unemployed or of extenuation at work. Just because the cataclysm is temporary does not mean it didn't exist.

Would you advocate to destroy all the machinery those people clamored against today?

Of course not. But some welfare would have saved a few million lives, greatly enriched any country (although people didn't know that by the time), and removed one or two world wars from our history.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#188

Post by xxpor »

PeterisP wrote: post #150
cgb223 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up in an area where becoming a trucker is a common enough career path, I can tell you that the hours of work thing (which is really miles per work, but they correlate) lands some truckers in some sketchy situations Many of my friends have told me they take those gas station "energy supplements" so they can stay up for 2-3 straight days to log more hours and make the trip. Thats probably not healthy for t…

"so they can stay up for 2-3 straight days to log more hours and make the trip" - by the way, is that legal and actually happening in USA? Sounds like a horrible risk to everyone else on the road; in EU you're not getting on the road without a tachograph recording your driving & rest times, and driving more than 9-10 hours per day (including at least 9 hours uninterrupted "rest" eash day) would result in massive fine…

No, it's absolutely not legal. The big difference is AFAIK, we don't require electronic recording. A lot of trucks owned by the bigger trucking companies do have electronic recording though.

The max per day is 11 hours, with a 70 hour cap for the whole week.

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/new-hours-servi...

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#189

Post by wombatpm »

masklinn wrote: post #152
jonknee wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That kinda already exists though, with team driving. Two pilots relaying gives ~22h of driving per 24h plus 2x30mn slack (under US regs, though there's still a limit of 70h/8 days followed by 34h rest per driver). So at minimum labor costs could halve... Sounds like a huge productivity boost.

> So at minimum labor costs could halve... Sounds like a huge productivity boost. It's not a change in productivity at all. Also > Truckers generally get paid per mile, not per hour.

You typically pay a surcharge for a team load, usually because you effectively move your load 1000 miles a day instead of 500. For certain types of loads, team drivers are how you make up for manufacturing delays.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#190

Post by icelancer »

photonios wrote: post #182
bobthepanda wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue has actually been prioritization. In Europe the rails are fast and well-maintained, which is great for passenger operation but expensive for very heavy freight operations. Passenger operations are also prioritized very heavily at the expense of freight operations on the rail network. In comparison, the US rail network is slow and low quality, which makes freight operations extremely attractive but is a…

I moved from western Europe to eastern Europe and public transport by train is absolutely horrible. I still hope that one day I can catch a train that arrives on schedule. We're not talking a couple of minutes delay, we're talking multiple hours. Even when the train finally departs, it'll pick up delay along the way due to poorly maintained tracks and bad scheduling. All of this turns 6 hour trips into 10 hour trips.…

>> Based on my personal experience, that statement applies to western Europe.

"Western Europe" is almost always what Americans are referring to when they say "Europe," for various biased reasons.

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