It's hard to say exactly, but the tractor usually weighs around 25000 lbs. You can probably save around 2000 to 3000 lbs of that.
If you do remove the operator completely you're going to end up creating other jobs anyways, as now you're going to need people to respond to flat tires and other load issues, you're going to need marshalling yard with load masters, you're going to need more humpers at each location.
This also ignores the case where loads are directly delivered to a customer. I work in radio broadcasting and the 53' box freight truck will drive straight to our transmitter site, even the ones up on mountains. There's _no_ driverless trailer that's going to do that and help unload the item. Also, since the transmitter is one of four destined for other customers, there would be no one to supervise us around other loads that we don't own and aren't covered for.
So, you'd need to create secondary hubs that can handle these types of deliveries with smaller trucks, hence, more jobs.
This is what I meant earlier, the logistics are really well nailed down. Owner operators of trailers make a lot of money because they solve a lot of problems all at once, are independent, and usually make a fuel surcharge so the price of gas impacts them far less.
If you remove them, you're going to need a whole bunch of other infrastructure to replace what they do. The system is labor efficient already as computers have already impacted all the secondary parts such as freight bookers many years ago.
Someone elsewhere mentioned companies making their own fuel dumps, which is _highly_ optimistic due to the way the current industry is arranged and the overhead and regulations involved in managing fuel tanks. Right now a dispatcher has software that can track their trucks with GPS, get fuel prices at all US locations from corporate fuel vendors, estimate current fuel volume on the truck and determine the optimal place for the driver to refuel along with the optimal amount for the driver to purchase. The message to the driver is usually communicated automatically through a message system installed in the cab, the driver can use the same system to communicate their actual mileage and fuel volume which gets factored back into everything. With newer trucks, the driver doesn't even need to input this information.
Sorry for the ramble, but this industry is pretty complex already. I'm not sure having fully automated trucks is a near-term reality, nor am I sure that the companies involved are actually aiming for that. There will be a slow shift of _certain_ types of loads into full automation with the last mile being driven the way it currently is with a very gradual shift to full automation as technology advances to meet these secondary demands.
If you do remove the operator completely you're going to end up creating other jobs anyways, as now you're going to need people to respond to flat tires and other load issues, you're going to need marshalling yard with load masters, you're going to need more humpers at each location.
This also ignores the case where loads are directly delivered to a customer. I work in radio broadcasting and the 53' box freight truck will drive straight to our transmitter site, even the ones up on mountains. There's _no_ driverless trailer that's going to do that and help unload the item. Also, since the transmitter is one of four destined for other customers, there would be no one to supervise us around other loads that we don't own and aren't covered for.
So, you'd need to create secondary hubs that can handle these types of deliveries with smaller trucks, hence, more jobs.
This is what I meant earlier, the logistics are really well nailed down. Owner operators of trailers make a lot of money because they solve a lot of problems all at once, are independent, and usually make a fuel surcharge so the price of gas impacts them far less.
If you remove them, you're going to need a whole bunch of other infrastructure to replace what they do. The system is labor efficient already as computers have already impacted all the secondary parts such as freight bookers many years ago.
Someone elsewhere mentioned companies making their own fuel dumps, which is _highly_ optimistic due to the way the current industry is arranged and the overhead and regulations involved in managing fuel tanks. Right now a dispatcher has software that can track their trucks with GPS, get fuel prices at all US locations from corporate fuel vendors, estimate current fuel volume on the truck and determine the optimal place for the driver to refuel along with the optimal amount for the driver to purchase. The message to the driver is usually communicated automatically through a message system installed in the cab, the driver can use the same system to communicate their actual mileage and fuel volume which gets factored back into everything. With newer trucks, the driver doesn't even need to input this information.
Sorry for the ramble, but this industry is pretty complex already. I'm not sure having fully automated trucks is a near-term reality, nor am I sure that the companies involved are actually aiming for that. There will be a slow shift of _certain_ types of loads into full automation with the last mile being driven the way it currently is with a very gradual shift to full automation as technology advances to meet these secondary demands.