The Coming Disruption of Transport

[crs1026]

No way is a passenger operating the vehicle. It will either have remote intervention by an employee in a monitoring centre, or the doors open and the passenger exits and the company recovers the vehicle. I mean, this is as absurd as Translink calling a passenger in a Skytrain and walking them through manually operating the vehicle.

The whole question of how traffic is controlled for emergent situations fascinates me. I can’t see how these vehicles will operate without some sort of override for “stalled vehicle in left lane at Jane street” scenarios. If the load on a self driving truck shifts as it passes me, how do I blow my horn and gesture to the driver? Can a police officer on patrol pull over an AV, and if so, how? (A fisrt responder vehicle will have a manual override, I’m sure!) How does the MTO worker close a lane to clear debris on the highway? AV’s will have just as many flat and blown tires as we see today on the roads.They will need turn signals and 4-way flashers, even to alert AI drivers.. Fire trucks will need e-sirens. How do we rescue stalled AV’s, and their passengers?

I don’t know how it will work, but I assume there will have to be some standardised technology for communicating between AV’s and with traffic control/interventions. The point is not so much how to do it, but how long will it take to develop a common set of standards that apply across the continent, who approves them, and who sets up the infrastructure. This sort of thing is why i push back on people who claim the trucks will be rolling by 2025.... engineering standards and building codes don’t get wriiten that fast. (Even with technology.....The standards for things like USB and wifi protocols were written years before the technology was rolled out) There is tons of consultation and dialog between suppliers, vendors, customers, regulators. And there is a change control process for revisions and innovation. Research and experiential data must be collected and evaluated.

When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the AV truck, the technology is ready.

- Paul

 

[afransen]

 

[2transpo]

For those who don't know, this is the company that CN is getting on board with to phase out their rail operations.

 

[lenaitch]

For those who don't know, this is the company that CN is getting on board with to phase out their rail operations.

You interpretation or their stated strategic goal?

 

[MrGoose]

For those who don't know, this is the company that CN is getting on board with to phase out their rail operations.

Oh yes, CN is out to phase out their core business

 

[2transpo]

Oh yes, CN is out to phase out their core business

Say you ran a trans-Atlantic ocean line in the late 1940s. Would it not be a wise move to invest in and look into operating aircraft in the future in order to phase out your trans-Atlantic ship crossings?

 

[afransen]

Oh yes, CN is out to phase out their core business

I see you went to the Kodak school of management.

 

[MrGoose]

Say you ran a trans-Atlantic ocean line in the late 1940s. Would it not be a wise move to invest in and look into operating aircraft in the future in order to phase out your trans-Atlantic ship crossings?

Except that Trains are far more efficient at carrying cargo goods than autonomous trucks. There isn't enough highway capacity to replace CN trains.

2400 meters of double stack train is 5000 autonomous trucks, at least.

I see you went to the Kodak school of management.

Will autonomous trucks be better at carrying goods across the country? No. Do you think CN wants to maintain a fleet of tens of thousands of autonomous trucks? Because that's what it'll take to carrying the loads that CN carries.

Canadian National Railway orders 50 all-electric trucks for intermodal fleet, emphasis on intermodal.

 

[MrGoose]

From this report back in 2002

CN is moving 60,300,000 tons of cargo every year between Toronto and Montreal in 2002. If you think that there is enough capacity on the 401 for Autonomous trucks to carry that much, you are sorely mistaken

And from this years report,

Basically, instead of having trains carry all this cargo, you'd have kilometers long trains of autonomous trucks on our highways.

 

[afransen]

Will autonomous trucks be better at carrying goods across the country? No. Do you think CN wants to maintain a fleet of tens of thousands of autonomous trucks? Because that's what it'll take to carrying the loads that CN carries.

Canadian National Railway orders 50 all-electric trucks for intermodal fleet, emphasis on intermodal.

Do you think Kodak wanted to stop selling highly profitable camera film and invest heavily in selling digital cameras?

What you want as a business is irrelevant, you have to adjust to changing market dynamics or you won't have a business. CN investing in an autonomous trucking company is a defensive play. Or, they can just want until someone else puts them out of business.

I don't think rail is going to be eliminated entirely, but it is hard to deny that electric autonomous trucks are going to be tremendous pressure on railroads.

 

[rbt]

Do you think CN wants to maintain a fleet of tens of thousands of autonomous trucks? Because that's what it'll take to carrying the loads that CN carries.

Actually, yes I do, but only for the first and last mile. Automated intermodal transfer to an automated truck is an obvious trick to pickup customers not currently located near a railway line. The trick missing is a standardized tank and hopper which could be lifted off the train onto a truck frame without unloading the contents similar to a container.

Railways are great for high trunk capacity at low cost. AVs are great for feathering deliveries to a number of end points. The combination of the two would be exceptionally strong.

 

[Rainforest]

Yep. They want to add the AV tracking capacity to their toolkit and gain more flexibility. Helps with the last mile problem, and helps to serve relatively low-volume customers located too far from any freight line.

Doesn't necessarily mean they are seeking to abandon all their rail operations.

 

[rbt]

Doesn't necessarily mean they are seeking to abandon all their rail operations.

Absolutely, if anything automation and easier mode-switching will reinforce railways. Small operations savings get much bigger when you take out manpower. Canadians are not likely to desire subsidizing road-works from personal income taxes; even if private cars don't have a fee for use, trucks definitely will.

Also, fun fact, CN Transportation is already Canada's second largest truck cargo company after TFI International.

Tractors: 7500
Trailers: 8000

Canada's Top 100 truck fleets topped by TFI International - Truck News

TORONTO, Ont. -- Today's Trucking magazine has updated its annual ranking of Canada's top 100 truck fleets by size, and there's a familiar name at the top

www.trucknews.com

 

[nfitz]

Well, if you think the 401 is a zoo now with all the truck traffic, hold onto your hat. I guess we can only hope there is a dedicated AV truck lane.... I'm not convinced that AV/EV trucks being cost competitive with rail is a good thing or a market failure. It might be a symptom of underpricing roads, and will necessitate tolling.

In theory, with the trucks being automated, you could restrict long-haul passage to after 7 pm and before 7 am in major centres. That could actually help congestion.

I still have a hard time in seeing this widely implemented anytime soon. So many factors.

Imagine how easy it would be to rob a truck. To cars slow down and stop in front of it. So it's not going anywhere. And a van behind it opens it up and takes what it wants. And there's dozens of other operation issues to sort.

 

[2transpo]

While it is easy to say that railroads carry a good amount of goods, to say that the roads wouldn't be able to handle it isn't true.

The 401 carries over 50,000 trucks per day at its busiest section. If we were generous and and say that between Windsor and Montreal there were 40 trains and each of those trains had 100 cars on them and each car carried and average of 3 trucks then we have the equivalant of 12,000 trucks per day on the rails. That is a modest increase and one that could be handled. Some rail infrastructure like right of ways could even be repurposed for trucks.

In addition, if we are to look at freight flows in Ontario, trucks greatly outstrips rail as seen here:

Freigh transport is also dictated by economics. Check out this report detailing the economics of autonomous trucking:

Autonomous Trucks Could Disrupt Rail and Transform Logistics

ARK expects autonomous trucks to reduce the cost of trucking from 12 cents per ton-mile to 3 cents during the next five to ten years.

ark-invest.com

When taking into account costs to use infrastructure, autonomous trucks are at parity with rail. At that point, almost nobody will want to use rail. There would be no advantage, so few will. Any legislative attempt to disrupt this would be met with pushback as it would disrupt economic activity. The shippers would overwhelmingly prefer autonomous trucks.