Driverless Trucking is in the Hot Seat: Supply Chain News

Driver Safety and Security has it's concerns, some individuals will most likely lose work, and the technology may not be 100% reliable.

Automation of trucking and delivery logistics have come under heavy fire from critics world-wide. The potential shift in the product delivery paradigm could create major implications on the current methods of supply chain logistics.

Most major trucking agencies are still years away from making the shift, and their employees (truckers) are less than enthused by the possibility of having their jobs being taken by highly intelligent robotic-trucks. This kind of concern is warranted. Manual- human operation of the trucks they drive, could become obsolete. 

How terrible, right?

Well... Not for business. 

The idea of a driverless trucking will certainly excite the penny pinchers of the business world. “Where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours per day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day. That means the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost” (techcrunch.com 2016).

This shift could show huge returns on top-line value for companies that rely on trucking as a means of logistics. 

Major technological innovation is coming, but at what cost?

See more about this discussion via Supply Chain Dive.