Friday Short Haul - Self-driving Yard Trucks, Knight-Swift Partners With Truckstop.com, Security Guard Shoots Driver

In this Friday Short Haul a company moves forward with autonomous, electric yard trucks, Knight-Swift partners with Truckstop.com for load brokering, and a TA security guard shoots a driver who was parked in a reserved spot.

Friday Short Haul - Self-driving yard trucks, Knight-Swift partners with Truckstop.com, Security guard shoots driver

Excellent stuff as always, DaveW. ~! Thanks again. :)

Oh Goody! What could go wrong?

Silent yard tractors, driving themselves, probably still going 25 mph faster than everybody else. Since there will be no human, who will we ask for directions, or the location of that elusive empty trailer?

Oh Goody! What could go wrong?

Silent yard tractors, driving themselves, probably still going 25 mph faster than everybody else. Since there will be no human, who will we ask for directions, or the location of that elusive empty trailer?

Who will also swing the doors open so they can back them into a door. I've only been to a couple distribution centers that designed their facility with enough room to open the doors on the inside. Who knows, maybe the autonomous would do a better job getting the trailers into a spot straighter instead of angled making another spot more difficult to get into. Or it could have the opposite effect and make these yards even tighter to maneuver around in.

I'm interested to see how this turns out for them. I'd much rather see them automate that part of the job than out on the highways at this stage of self driving vehicles. Tesla has made alot of news lately for the software bugs resulting in accidents and deaths. I seen a story earlier about a speed limit sign being altered that a human would still know the limit but the Tesla car ended up misreading it and would have done 85 in a 35. That's terrifying to know what would have happened if a 80,000 pound machine did that.

Why not just switch the diesel units to electric to cut down on pollution and let all those people keep their jobs driving the sparky’s.

Really drives me nuts!!! You watch the news and hear about unemployment rates, we gotta create more jobs, ETC... and then you see something like this that will put a lot of people out of work. Just like the computer run robotic assembly lines building cars. Many of the older workers never recovered from losing that job. I’m all for technology making some things easier but people have to be kept in the loop

I took from it that these are going to be RC .. like toy trucks and cars. Sit in an office, and run switches. (And when landing gears are buried in mud/snow/ice on the trailers the robot is trying to retrieve, the guy hops out of the climate controlled office, and becomes 'Yard RoboDog Assist" .. LoL~!)

Hey Anne, I’m thinking about the peeps driving them now and what happens as these new drone units are phased in. Most of those older workers will get phased out with the old equipment. It will create jobs for the young adults in the future, they love video games, perfect job for them.

Hey Anne, I’m thinking about the peeps driving them now and what happens as these new drone units are phased in. Most of those older workers will get phased out with the old equipment. It will create jobs for the young adults in the future, they love video games, perfect job for them.

Yep, exactly. Perfect environment; controlled atmosphere (and private property!) Might as well phase in the techno edge for the upcoming kids, haha!! No more of this:

10 y/o shifting '77 Mack

Oh Goody! What could go wrong?

Silent yard tractors, driving themselves, probably still going 25 mph faster than everybody else. Since there will be no human, who will we ask for directions, or the location of that elusive empty trailer?

right, or to pull out a trailer that's parked too close to another to get to the landing gear. because in some yards all the trailers are parked that way given the limited space.

I wonder how the remotely operated tractor will cut door seals, open trailer doors, close trailer doors, raise and lower landing gear, etc. there's not even going to be an efficient and quick way that they can come up with to hook up the electrical line and airlines the way they're set up now.

There are certain jobs that should only be done by humans. further I can't understand why as the population expands we keep trying to come up with ways to eliminate jobs for that population.

Oh Goody! What could go wrong?

Silent yard tractors, driving themselves, probably still going 25 mph faster than everybody else. Since there will be no human, who will we ask for directions, or the location of that elusive empty trailer?

right, or to pull out a trailer that's parked too close to another to get to the landing gear. because in some yards all the trailers are parked that way given the limited space.

I wonder how the remotely operated tractor will cut door seals, open trailer doors, close trailer doors, raise and lower landing gear, etc. there's not even going to be an efficient and quick way that they can come up with to hook up the electrical line and airlines the way they're set up now.

There are certain jobs that should only be done by humans. further I can't understand why as the population expands we keep trying to come up with ways to eliminate jobs for that population.

Aubrey, I think techno people are coming up with ways to accommodate the techno kids, and the 'dumbing down' of the future populous. Doesn't mean I agree with it.

DaveW. posted an article a bit ago (a week?) with Sim's SOOOO cool, any kid (even mine!) would be interested. For a moment, anyway.