2018 will closely follow 2017 as the year of IoT and that is not a reference to the Internet of Things but rather the Internet of Trucking.
The digital transformation is well underway up and down the supply chain. In fact, technology will likely outpace the ability of societal acceptance and policy decisions by public officials.
Nowhere in the supply chain is this rapid change raising more questions than the role of the truck driver. Report after report and story after story have the truck of the future tossing the driver off the side of the highway that will then be cluttered with millions of other jobs and trades displaced by automation.
Racing to that future where the driver is tossed aside is misguided and a mistake. We are on an important journey now and one that will result in significant safety gains and operational efficiencies. The trucking industry is well underway with technologies that, while relatively new, are already showing positive results including video capture, lane departure warning, and automatic emergency braking.
All of these new tools for drivers are part of the technology transformation, and there is no need to wait for the not-too-distant future where some are predicting a driverless truck. Between now and the time when technology and society are ready to accept automated trucks, billions of miles will be traveled by trucks, and those miles will be made safer by the partnership of technology and the human counterpart in the truck of the cab.
The future role of the driver will change, but not necessarily be eliminated. The driving experience of the future will be different and better than it is now. Let’s hope that this new technology ushers in — not ushers out — a new wave of drivers for our industry. We certainly need them.