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Driver assisted vehicles are here, but autonomous vehicles are a long way off
It seems it’s almost impossible to pick up a magazine (trucking indus- try publications, included) or tune into the news without reading a story about the next great breakthrough in autonomous technologies – com- plete with opinions on when the vehicles will be commonly roaming our highways with no driver in sight.
So many predicted timelines have gone by without a mention – it’s like an Elon Musk prediction, no one really expects the predicted date to be delivered on.
I deplore the word ‘autonomous,’ hence my term driver assisted vehi- cles. The mass media’s penchant for using the term autonomous – and too many of us in the trucking indus- try following suit – is not helping us recruit tomorrow’s drivers into today’s trucking industry.
In recent years, this has been a tough industry to get the youth excited about. However, helping portray the belief that we won’t need drivers in five years as these trucks will be driving themselves by then, isn’t exactly you’re A-list recruiting material. We, as an industry, are already suffering through a shortage of talent, and helping pull the trig- ger of the gun that is shooting us in the foot.
For this reason, we need to start, en-masse, promoting these vehicles for what they are: highly-advanced, finely-tuned, highly-technological vehicles, that when teamed up with a highly-skilled operator, can be the safest and most efficient trucks we have ever seen on the road.
When equipped with systems such as adaptive cruise control, forward collision mitigation, lane depar- ture warnings, blind spot detection, anti-rollover, amongst others, they have been proven to reduce acci- dents, and reduce the severity of the ones they can’t eliminate.
In North America, with our infra- structure the way it is, “AVs” must rely on sensors, radar, GPS and lidar to operate their systems. At this point,
these devices have proven extremely unreliable in adverse weather condi- tions such as snow, ice, fog, and rain. Is this technology improving? Yes. But even according to the manufactur- ers, these devices are a ways off from being able to operate in full autono- mous mode via sensors and GPS.
In order for a vehicle to be truly autonomous, it needs to be con- nected to an advanced infrastruc- ture through sensors and guides. AV infrastructure is being constructed in certain jurisdictions in small areas for testing purposes. If it proves fea- sible, in time I can see more of these types of autonomous vehicle oper- ation centers, however even then, I still see people being present for the foreseeable future, mainly for reasons of public perception and liability.
For long-distance travel, is it realis- tic at this point to develop a coast-to- coast network constructed for autono- mous or connected vehicle operations? I can’t see this any time soon. We can’t even get a national standard for such
things as highway construction or the paint and reflective material that is used for marking signs and roads. Have you ever driven on an Ontario highway in the rain and tried to figure out what lane you are in?
The lines literally disappear from view, and I personally have asked the province to review the paint they use and come up with a more reflective and visible option. In more than three years, even that hasn’t been accomplished .
I don’t mean to sound dismissive when it comes to these vehicles. I just think we all need a shot of reality. Do my views mean I think we should forget about this technology? No. Quite the opposite. I believe we will see further adoption in controlled environments such as mining, forestry and oilfield.
I believe we need to make systems such as adaptive cruise control, for- ward collision mitigation, and others mentioned earlier, mandatory. These driver assistance technologies have proven their worth.
Mike Millian is president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, the only national
association that represents the views and interests of the private fleet industry. He can be reached at trucks@pmtc.ca.
These tools, coupled with a skilled driver, improve public safety immensely. We should ensure we have regulations that allow further testing of technologies, but also keep public safety in mind. Let’s all embrace technology, but be realis- tic at the same time. If we use the current state of advancement in our vehicles properly, we can actually use this as a recruiting device for tomor- row’s driver. The role of the driver is always going to be needed, the occu- pation is just going to change going forward. The driver of the future may be more in line with that of an airline pilot today, but still needed. This type of technology is what excites today’s youth. Let’s market this properly and change the narrative. TN
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November 2018 • Truck News 45