What happens to the track driver with the introduction of automatic driving track?

by Lav Ulv

Automatic driving cars are technologies that many companies pay attention to around the world, and in the future it is thought that the diffusion of automatic driving cars will advance in the transportation industry. The UCB Labor Center at the University of California at Berkeley who is studying workers' problems predicts the problem of "How does the truck industry change with the spread of automatic driving trucks?"

Driverless? Autonomous Trucks and the Future of the American Trucker | Center for Labor Research and Education
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/driverless/

The advent of automatic driving trucks is becoming a real problem that is directly linked to the employment of truck drivers. The American truck industry is a huge industry of about 740 billion dollars (about 80 trillion yen), which is one of the few occupations that can earn over $ 40,000 (about 4,400,000 yen) even without a degree, but in order to cut costs It seems that it will become an early adapter to introduce an automatic driving car. According to the report released this time, there are multiple scenarios to be considered for introducing automatic driving trucks to the truck industry.

There are various kinds of truck drivers, including "Full truckload driver" which carries a load of one truck, "Port driver (harbor driver)" which carries loads unloaded from the port by truck, "Parcel driver (Consolidation Driver)" carrying cargoes subdivided from multiple shippers, "Less-than-truckload driver" carrying less packs than one truck, individuals from luggage collection plants Delivery driver (Delivery driver) "which delivers to home etc.

Generally, the full truck driver carries only one shipper's luggage, and the average wage is from 47,000 dollars (about 5.2 million yen) to 54,000 dollars (about 6 million yen) and is often an independent contractor And that. Mixed flight drivers who undertake luggage from multiple shippers and transport them to the main accumulation place average wages of $ 60,000 (about 6.7 million yen), average wages of small flight drivers transporting shipments less than one truck for a long distance are It is worth $ 69,000 (about 7.6 million yen), which is higher than full truck drivers. This difference seems to be due to the fact that many full-truck drivers have many individual contractors, while consolidated flights and small flight drivers belong to a stable organization that can hold carriers.

Meanwhile, the average wage of the harbor driver is about $ 29,000 (about 3 million yen) to $ 35,000 (about 3.9 million yen), and the delivery driver has an average wage of about 36,000 dollars (about 4 million yen). Compared to small-quantity flights and mixed-load flight drivers, you can see that they are hired at about half the wage.

Many people expect automated driving cars to be introduced soon, but as a realistic problem there are many unexpected obstacles such as pedestrians, other vehicles, road constructions, cyclists in public roads. Therefore, in reports, it seems that it will probably take decades or longer for automatic driving to be possible on all roads including local roads in the area.

In addition, the driver not only carries packages, but also performs various tasks such as loading, unloading procedures, document preparation, and tracking exchanges with customers. Therefore, it is not realistic to completely eliminate human drivers. Therefore, in the report, as an introduction measure of the automatic driving truck which can be possibly in the future, it is said that "a luggage storage place is made near the entrance of the expressway, from there loading luggage to an automatic driving truck, running on a highway, I will carry the baggage to the accumulation place near the exit of the expressway ".

According to this scenario, drivers for long-distance driving trucks such as full-truck drivers traveling over long distances, small flights, mixed-load drivers, etc. will be unnecessary. On the other hand, delivery drivers will be left to transport baggage from the port to the collection point or to deliver it from the collection point to individual houses.

Looking at the number of employed truck drivers by type in the United States, full truck drivers, small-quantity flights and mixed flight drivers are responsible for approximately 294,000 jobs. When automatic operation trucks are introduced in the industry, it is said that the relatively high wages and employment conditions of good employment are lost, and the drivers who lost their jobs are likely to flow to poor employment delivery drivers or port drivers about.

Compared to a human driver who has to take a rest for a certain period of time every day and an automatic driving truck that can work all the time except for maintenance, it is a natural flow for the industry to introduce automatic driving trucks. Introducing an automatic driving truck has a great profit from which the industry can be obtained, but at the same time many relatively high-quality jobs are lost, which can result in workers flowing into inferior employment.

Therefore, in the report, three important proposals are made to protect workers and not to deteriorate employment conditions. The proposal is "to organize a conference that collects stakeholders in the truck industry and strive to expand safety net such as guarantee at the time of unemployment" "Policy makers formulate stronger labor standards, employment in transport industry Improve conditions "" Stakeholders share goals, states and local governments use public funds to reflect on production ".

There is no doubt that the benefits that automatic driving trucks bring are very big. Meanwhile, the report should avoid avoiding the disadvantage of workers for pursuit of profit, and stated that related organizations and administrative agencies should actively cooperate to protect the working environment.

by Lav Ulv