Uber launches commercial unmanned truck service

Uber has announced the launch of a commercial service for the transport of goods using unmanned trucks. At the initial stage of the project, trucks will run on the roads of Arizona, USA. State authorities are very supportive of robotic vehicles in all manifestations, including unmanned trucks. In fairness, it should be noted that cars will not roll around the state without people in the cab. No, according to the law, a person must still be in the driver's seat so that if something goes wrong, take control of the situation.

Uber Commercial Cargo Service Launched Last Yearbut until now people were driving the wagons; autonomy was out of the question. By registering in a specialized application, the user of the “loading and unloading” service will be able to order a heavy truck in a couple of clicks - about the same as when searching for a driver.

The search task is performed by the Uber Freight service, as the company called its logistics division. Interestingly, the chain itself is not organized as usual. The standard way to transport goods is to place an object or objects in a van that carries goods from point A to point B. At the same time, the same driver drives the car. In the case of Uber Freight, the situation is somewhat different: a person starts the path and ends it, parking in the desired slot. But the intermediate stage, that is, the transportation itself, takes on an autonomous system. The truck operator (the driver of the person who is responsible for the operation of the truck cannot be called) will be less tired as a result. You will have to follow the road, but still much less effort is required than usual.

Probably, such a system of work will attract additional specialists, ex-truckers who want a more relaxed life. “Service truck drivers will perform routine tasks of this kind for specialists, but only when the situation requires it. The tasks will be as follows - entering the station, navigating the site loaded with other vehicles, performing complex maneuvers, ”said one of the leaders of the new service.


The video above shows the cargo delivery process, which consists of three stages. Initially, a man, a truck driver, gets into a truck already loaded with goods, which is quite ordinary. On this truck, cargo is delivered to the station autonomous systems. At the station, the trailer is removed from a regular truck and attached to an autonomous Uber Freight service vehicle. The latter has its own driver / operator, who makes sure that everything goes well and smoothly, almost without participating in the driving process.

According to experts from Uber, such a process is good both for those who need to transport goods, and for drivers - because they travel much shorter distances, which means they can spend more time at home, with families. The problem of the long absence of truckers is quite serious. Sometimes it leads to the collapse of families or simply psychological discomfort in the family. Many try to close their eyes to this, but the problem really exists. And robotic cars are a great way to solve the problem, removing part of the tasks from truckers.

So far, autonomous trucks will travel no more than 450 kilometers. The project is a test, so Amazon is afraid of "letting go" its trucks outside of Arizona and for a long time.

At the end of the journey, there is a reverse exchange between the operator of the autonomous truck and the driver of a conventional car. The cargo clings to the latter, and it goes to the end point of its journey. On the spot, the driver parks and the car begins to be unloaded.

According to representatives of Uber, the company does not seek to reduce the number of jobs in companies that are engaged in cargo transportation. Yes, over long distances, cars will gradually replace people. But on short ones, more drivers will be needed than before, since the cargo will have to be transferred back and forth twice for the entire route of the car. Of course, the tasks of the operators are somewhat different from the tasks of ordinary drivers, but still, jobs do not go anywhere.


By the way, not only Uber is engaged in trucks. Autonomous large machines designed to perform logistics tasks are also produced by other companies, including Mercedes. Back in 2014, she introduced the world to autonomous trucks of her own design, called the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025. The robomobile has already been tested, and it performed very well. A feature of the truck is the presence of a steering wheel - laws still oblige a person to be in the driver's seat so that, as mentioned above, if something goes wrong, quickly take control of the situation.

So far, this truck model exists in a single copy, there is no car for sale. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the possible price of the truck. According to experts, the addition of an automatic control system to a passenger car increases the price of such a car by about 10 thousand US dollars. In the case of a truck, one must think that this amount needs to be increased several times.