Dorothy Cox at The Trucker wrote about my panel at the really interesting CVO Conference yesterday in Dallas “Industry must change, but tech advancements carry their own challenges, panelist says“. The conference can be followed on Twitter at the #CVOutlook hashtag .
… And of course the conversation got around to autonomous trucks, the bywords of the day.
By the year 2030, maybe half of all miles driven will be by driverless trucks, predicted David Levinson, chair of transportation at the University of Minnesota. [Ed: NOT ACTUALLY WHAT I SAID, I PUT THE TIMEFRAME FOR CARS IN MID 2030s, BUT OK, I WAS TALKING FAST]
But he painted a somewhat different picture than other speakers in discussing the subject. He said a driver might be engaged in supervising multiple drone trucks on set routes from a control center, intervening if something goes wrong, and told attendees that in the future, goods pickup and delivery could be bid on, leading to supply chain networking and consolidated home delivery.
Where does that leave trucks?
David Levinson, Transportist 
Can you elaborate on what you said wrt the supply chain restructuring? Is the thought that different vehicles (not only trucks) will join this AV stream based on bid prices and based on its acceptance then give control to these remote drivers? Lets say a person is going from A to B in a minivan and driving alone. (S)he decides that there is space in the vehicle to carry goods, they are going from A to B during a specific time window and they enter their details in an online portal for bidding to carry these goods. Their bid is accepted, and they join this stream of vehicles that are going from X to A to B to Y. Going in this stream of vehicles gives them the benefit of minimizing fuel consumption due to constant headways + they make some extra $$ on the side on a trip they were making anyway. Is that what you mean by supply chain restructuring? Am curious.
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