Page 77 - Linkline Yearbook 2017

Self-Driving Vehicles in Road Freight Transport
Self-driving vehicles could prove revolutionary for supply chain; with expedient delivery times, reduced congestion, and cost savings, as well as having a more positive environmental impact. However, there are still a few barriers that may hinder their progress.
Amandeep Singh Muddhar, Nikolaos Valantasis-Kanellos, Dr Eoin Plant National Institute for Transport and Logistics, DIT
The advent of self-driving vehicles is gearing up to be a major game changer across all transport industries. The freight and supply chain industry, in particular, could see radical changes if the new technology becomes widely implemented. This article reports on the use of self-driving vehicles in road freight transportation and examines how this technology could reduce costs and benefit hauliers in the light of increasing freight transport demand. Additionally, it investigates the impact of this technology on society and other supply chain members, and identifies current implementation barriers and potentials for future developments.
Impact of increased demand in the freight transport market
Both the Irish Central Statistics Office and the European Environment Agency report a considerable growth in the demand for cross-European freight transport. This fact raises concerns over road safety as drivers encounter more complex tasks in the light of increasing traffic intensity. Based on this concern, the World Health Organisation
anticipates increased numbers of road accidents and associated fatalities. In 2013 there were 1.25 million road traffic deaths reported on a global scale, and another 20-50 million people involved in non-fatal road accidents. However, these numbers are likely to fall as the adoption of self-driving vehicles is anticipated to eliminate road traffic accidents caused by human error, even though driverless vehicles still need to improve in some key areas.
What are self-driving vehicles?
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration self-driving vehicles can be defined as
the vehicles which do not require any “direct driver input,
to control the steering, acceleration, and braking” of the vehicle, and do not require the driver to “constantly monitor the roadway while operating in self-driving mode”. That
is because, self-driving vehicles are anticipated to adapt
to the speed of nearby vehicles and maintain a regular distance from the preceding vehicle. This technology can be conceptualised using a five-part continuum with different levels of automation as depicted in Figure 1.
The CharTered InsTITuTe of LogIsTICs & TransporT 77
SELF-DRIVING FREIGHT