* Truckers around the world are facing their latest rival head-on: Driverless trucks
-- After decades checking their rearview mirrors for the threat from rail and air transport, truckers around the world are facing their latest rival head-on: driverless trucks... As companies from Toyota Motor Corp to Google parent Alphabet Inc race to develop driverless technology, trucking companies are seeing the potential to cut costs by nearly half and improve safety... Already in Australia, the world's most truck-dependent nation, mining giants such as Rio Tinto are using remote controlled lorries to shift iron ore around massive mining pits... Now the country's road transport companies are modernising fleets to ensure that when their industry goes autonomous, as early as the end of the decade, they are ready... Testing of the other benefits expected from going fully driverless - savings from removing driver compartments, air conditioning and rest stops - will come later... The cuts in wage and fuel bills could be massive. The U.S. road freight business alone was worth $700 billion in 2014, according to the American Trucking Associations... Although self-driven freight depends on making the inter-vehicle sensors and satellite positioning failsafe, the biggest hold-up is expected to come from regulators... Coordinating rules between different jurisdictions, whether between U.S. or Australian states or European countries, is key... Fears that thousands of drivers will lose their jobs have been raised, but the industry has downplayed such concerns as many countries struggle to fill trucking jobs... But said Kelvin Baxter, a former driver who employs 50 at his grain transportation business in Australia's east, "At the moment, our concerns are finding enough drivers" ...
(Photo) -- SYDNEY, Australia/AMSTERDAM, Holland - Reuters, by Byron Kaye/Toby Sterling/Allison Lampert and Lincoln Feast - Jan 21, 2016Labels: techno trucks, technologies
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