On Oct. 20, Chris Spear, the President of the American Trucking Association, told CNN that the U.S. faces a historic shortage of truck drivers that is significantly contributing to the backlogs of deliveries at U.S. ports.
Spear anticipates that if nothing is done, the industry could face a shortage of 130,000 drivers in eight years. One week later, an executive panel hosted by Deloitte discussed a possible solution, and it is one that the Dallas area is uniquely poised to lead – autonomous trucking.
Texas has had a relatively long relationship with autonomous technology. In 2015, Waymo debuted the first-ever autonomous vehicle to navigate public roads.
According to Waymo’s head of state policy and governmental relations, Annabel Chang, a combination of good weather, good government relations, and major shipping routes makes Texas a natural leader in the industry.
“Lots of current drivers are aging, ready to retire within the next decade,” Embark Policy Counsel Monika Darwish said. “The number of people coming into the industry is not enough to fill that gap. When you look at the increasing demand of e-commerce, etcetera, on top of that, you need a solution for the supply chain to not completely collapse. Autonomous trucking is one small piece of that.”
The Dallas Regional Chamber hosted the Autonomous Trucking Roundtable presented by Deloitte on October 28 and featured leaders of some of the most influential companies aiming to bring autonomous trucking to the mainstream.
Panelists discussed the trucking industry’s future, where the autonomous truck fits into the bigger picture, and why Dallas and the State of Texas have become national leaders in the industry.
One key of the discussion was the role that truck drivers will play in the future. To dispel fears that autonomous trucking will end the careers of drivers, executives said that the most likely plan would be to convert drivers to a schedule that improves the work and life balance.
This issue tends to limit the number of new truck drivers who do not wish to be gone from their families for extended periods of time.
“We could remove the human driver in Texas tomorrow,” Aurora’s Gerardo Interiano said. Aurora launched a pilot program in Sept. that provides autonomous trucks to FedEx, with drivers serving as a backup.
“There’s nothing that prevents us from a regulatory perspective. But one of the things you’re getting into is the public acceptance,” Interiano added. “That is a component that we, as an industry, are responsible for. We are responsible for working with partners like the Chamber, like the [North Central Texas Council of Governments]… to show that this technology is safe.”
The DFW region is second only to Chicago in the volume of transportation nationally. Experts lauded the cooperation with local, state, and county governments, including TxDOT, the Dallas Regional Chamber, and the North Central Texas Council of Governments for easing the process and creating opportunities for companies to develop and test autonomous trucking.