Autonomous trucking question
With the possible advent of autonomous vehicles, the idea of autonomous trucks becomes attractive. Professional drivers are expensive components of a vehicle system, costing much more than the fuel or the vehicle. Surely removing this element must make the whole thing safer.
Here is a question though. How do you stop people from stealing your cargo without a person aboard? The cargo of any truck is likely to be valuable. Imagine the cheapest commodity possible in a lorry and I think of baked beans. They have a certain resale value and can be offloaded to a number of less than scrupulous low key retailers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-24637628
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/15007819.Robbers_abduct_sleeping_HGV_driver_and_steal_truck_carrying_2_000_laptops_worth___1_3m/?ref=mac
Stealing from a lorry whilst the driver is asleep is a crime of opportunity, having an automated vehicle makes that opportunity surface larger, and therefore easier to exploit. The value of having a human in the driving seat may well be that the cargo has a higher probability of geting to its destination.
If one was so inclined to want to rob an automated lorry, I should be able to stop it by simply standing in front of it, or more simply parking a car in front of it slowly. If I can't stop it then the transport operator will have mown down an innocent person in the street. Once the vehicle is stopped then there are the relatively simple challenges of entering and removing the stock from the vehicle.
Automated alarms may be a necessity, but these can be overcome easily with signal jammers. These are relatively easy to make, and may stop some. a secondary defence may be an automated alert being triggered is a vehicle does not meet a checkpoint by a certain time. However; this alert may be too slow to stop an organised robbery.
Another defence may be to make vehicles harder to enter once stopped. This might involve using heavier materials at the doors and sides of vehicles. This will reduce the trucks fuel efficiency and would slow an attacker down.
A better defence would be to employ someone to accompany each load - perhaps with the ability to over ride the vehicle controls if needed. This however still sounds very similar to the role of a driver.
The advantage of removing the driver from the transport operation may be a double edged sword. Drivers provide more tangible benefits than just the operation of a vehicle. By providing their physical presence they offer security and a human interface to a vehicle. This both deters unwanted attention and can provide valuable information where things go wrong. Perhaps a better solution is for humans and machines to work in consort, the driver sleeping through monotonous simple driving conditions, and alert in towns would enable the driver to work smarter. Perhaps even relaxing some of the rules that have them sleeping in laybys in the first place could make loads safer all round.
Here is a question though. How do you stop people from stealing your cargo without a person aboard? The cargo of any truck is likely to be valuable. Imagine the cheapest commodity possible in a lorry and I think of baked beans. They have a certain resale value and can be offloaded to a number of less than scrupulous low key retailers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-24637628
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/15007819.Robbers_abduct_sleeping_HGV_driver_and_steal_truck_carrying_2_000_laptops_worth___1_3m/?ref=mac
Stealing from a lorry whilst the driver is asleep is a crime of opportunity, having an automated vehicle makes that opportunity surface larger, and therefore easier to exploit. The value of having a human in the driving seat may well be that the cargo has a higher probability of geting to its destination.
If one was so inclined to want to rob an automated lorry, I should be able to stop it by simply standing in front of it, or more simply parking a car in front of it slowly. If I can't stop it then the transport operator will have mown down an innocent person in the street. Once the vehicle is stopped then there are the relatively simple challenges of entering and removing the stock from the vehicle.
Automated alarms may be a necessity, but these can be overcome easily with signal jammers. These are relatively easy to make, and may stop some. a secondary defence may be an automated alert being triggered is a vehicle does not meet a checkpoint by a certain time. However; this alert may be too slow to stop an organised robbery.
Another defence may be to make vehicles harder to enter once stopped. This might involve using heavier materials at the doors and sides of vehicles. This will reduce the trucks fuel efficiency and would slow an attacker down.
A better defence would be to employ someone to accompany each load - perhaps with the ability to over ride the vehicle controls if needed. This however still sounds very similar to the role of a driver.
The advantage of removing the driver from the transport operation may be a double edged sword. Drivers provide more tangible benefits than just the operation of a vehicle. By providing their physical presence they offer security and a human interface to a vehicle. This both deters unwanted attention and can provide valuable information where things go wrong. Perhaps a better solution is for humans and machines to work in consort, the driver sleeping through monotonous simple driving conditions, and alert in towns would enable the driver to work smarter. Perhaps even relaxing some of the rules that have them sleeping in laybys in the first place could make loads safer all round.
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