Put those containers away

[NorthWest]

https://logisticsviewpoints.com/2018/07/16/no-driver-working-today-will-need-to-change-careers-because-of-autonomous-trucks/

Here's an interesting counterpoint regarding the timeline of autonomous trucking and the state of the industry at the moment.

Last mile deliveries are going to be much harder to automate than highway operation. It suits the traditional model of automation as it eliminates the jobs that people are increasingly unlikely to want (long-haul) while preserving the local jobs that offer far greater quality of life.

My suspicion is that TO and Leader will become increasingly oriented towards machine learning and interfaced with newer generations of PTC and will take over most line-haul rail operations on a similar timeline. Driver costs are a much higher proportion of truck costs than rail costs, but energy costs are also higher.

If railroads can use technology to eliminate many of the service failures and problems that make using the railroads so frustrating for many, then they will continue to succeed accordingly. It's just going to require investment and discipline, which are not at the forefront of present railroad priorities.

[Overmod]

ttrraaffiicc

The president of the company envisions a new form of intermodal with autonomous trucks taking the place of trains.

That's not what Cheng Lu says and it's not what the article says; in fact I'd expect an 'autonomous express line' model to save the railroads from themselves by effectively coordinating intermodal access to and from 'bulk moves in te same window of time' that optimize use and maintenance of the autonomous equipment.

I was amused to see him running an ops test with USPS.  Hopefully for him the Post Office has gotten away from its former operating model of outsourcing traffic between regional centers to people providing the absolute lowest cost, often with ancient tractors and crudely repainted older van trailers with the city pairs stenciled on them.  Remembering the effect on another highly overcapitalized and stranded-cost system when the Post Office abruptly redirected its intercity spend on perceived-cheaper alternatives in 1967, I trust Lu isn't making this a cornerstone of autonomous operation unless he can command an effective monopoly of lowest-cost OTR operation (and I suspect he can't without sigificant manipulation of the political system).

Second, it' looks to me as if Lu has never run a restaurant.  A great deal of McLane's traffic is involved not in intercity provisioning between distribution centers, but fairly long delivery of reasonably staged loads to restaurants.  If you thought autonomous container trains were an open invitation to Conrail Boyz - The Sequel, imagine deliveries of what may be expensive food without human on-site presence to watch the loadout.  Now, I don't know either the internal aggregate numbers nor McLane's operational priorities, so they may have enough pure staging moves to contribute materially to his autonomous-express-line model.  But it will lack the flexibility of the present model which can use the same fleet for deliveries as for business-to-distribution-center transfer.

[ttrraaffiicc]

Overmod

That's not what Cheng Lu says and it's not what the article says

The article says:

Lu envisions Level 4 automation giving rise to a new form of intermodal operations, where trucks piloted by drivers continue to handle short hauls while autonomous trucks emerge as an option for longer-distance freight movements.

It is going to be difficult justifying the use of rail when this is an option.

[Overmod]

ttrraaffiicc

The article says "Lu envisions Level 4 automation giving rise to a new form of intermodal operations, where trucks piloted by drivers continue to handle short hauls while autonomous trucks emerge as an option for longer-distance freight movements."  It is going to be difficult justifying the use of rail when this is an option.

The problem here is that you read just far enough to confirm your prejudices and then came whipping over here to pre-emptively gloat.  A couple of sentences later is this:

Although Level 4 trucking is not scalable to every nook and store front, it is well-suited to repeating the mundane, longhaul routes on interstate highways where driver recruiting and retention pose significant challenges for fleets, he said. “That’s where you can outsource to this new mode of transportation.”

And that in fact is what the operational plan well into the 2020s is focused on ... as I think is intelligent.  (As I noted, it seems obvious to people who actually know logistics that a 'virtual express company' model that can aggregate key traffic across a widening network of lanes will embrace, not reject, an opportunity to use some modern version of TOFC where that provides operational or financial benefit; it remains to be seen exactly how cost-effective pervasive SAE level 4 automation of large trucks becomes even with -- and this alone shows Lu's savvy in understanding what's important for an operation of this kind -- Penske's distributed maintenance base providing the necessary predictive PM for 'non-stop' capital utilization.)

[tree68]

ttrraaffiicc

It is going to be difficult justifying the use of rail when this is an option.

Sometimes I don't think you realize how much (and what type of) traffic actually travels on the rails.

Spend a day on the Deshler webcams (or any other - I just know Deshler better), and keep the CSX symbol wiki up, too, so you can see where those 50+ trains are going.

[csxns]

tree68

I don't think you realize how much (and what type of) traffic actually travels on the rails.

[BaltACD]

csxns

 

tree68

I don't think you realize how much (and what type of) traffic actually travels on the rails. 

I don't think any of us can visualize ALL the domestic traffic that is moving with all the modes of transportation - Roads, railroads, watercraft, pipelines and air.

More traffic than any single mode can ever be built out to handle individually.

[JimmyChonga]

We american taxpayers cannot continue to maitain the highways for trucking. The last numbers I recall peg $0.18/mile per truck in maintanence fees! And that's just for a measley 80,000 gross vehicle. Furthermore, if you think a lack of rail sidings is a problem; what about builing more highways $$$

Electric trucks, automation... all cool stuff but the efficiencies just aren't there.

[ttrraaffiicc]

JimmyChonga

We american taxpayers cannot continue to maitain the highways for trucking. The last numbers I recall peg $0.18/mile per truck in maintanence fees! And that's just for a measley 80,000 gross vehicle. Furthermore, if you think a lack of rail sidings is a problem; what about builing more highways $$$ Electric trucks, automation... all cool stuff but the efficiencies just aren't there.

The thing about road subsidies is that despite all of the talk that we can't continue to keep doing things the way we do, we have done things this way for over 60 years. People have always said there isn't money for it, but for 60 years the money has come from somewhere.

Fred W. Frailey

Today, if rail costs to move a container 2,000 miles are indexed at 100, highway costs are 131. (A 31 percent cost advantage hides a lot of late deliveries.) A three-unit platoon with drivers in all cabs would bring the truck index down to 121, a three-unit platoon with a single driver would drop the index to 96, and a driverless truck would be indexed at 79.

The solution to the subsidy problem is simple. As trucking costs decrease substantially through the adoption of new technologies, trucking will be able to pay the true cost per mile of road usage while still remaining at cost parity or below rail. Essentially, shippers can recieve truck service and transit times at rail costs and the tax payer will not be on the hook for it.

Also of note: https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2020/07/09-carload-rail-traffic-slower-to-rebound-than-trucks

It looks like rail is entering another slump it won't recover from.

[tree68]

ttrraaffiicc

It looks like rail is entering another slump it won't recover from.

Traffic is slowly returning to pre-panicdemic levels through Deshler.  The fans there keep a running count...

[blue streak 1]

Here on I-85 south of Newnan Ga ( 25 miles south of ATL airport ) the state is having to repair many potholes in the concrete pavement.   Procedure is close a lane  starting at about 7PM, break out all the pothole, tamp the hole, and fill with fast drying concrete.  Reopen at about 7 AM.  The right lane mostly for trucks is the lane with the most potholes.  A welcome change driving over the repairs..

There is one bridge on the I-85 now being fixed.  The bridge has major under pinning problems that has been worked on almost every night for at least 3 weeks.

[SD60MAC9500]

GE appliances doesn't want to put those containers away. In fact they want more.