What Will Transportation Look Like in 25 Years?

Trucking in the United States is big business. As a result, there are countless companies that are looking to trucking and logistics for future opportunities. With companies such as Tesla, Uber, Amazon, Samsung and IBM getting involved in some facet of the transportation industry, it is not surprising that it feels that we are on the precipice of a technological revolution within the field. It begs the question, what will transportation look like in 25 years? What major changes will occur and what technologies can we except to become the standard in the coming decades?

It is well known that Uber has recently broken into the trucking market in a major and unprecedented way. Uber is on the forefront of autonomous trucking technology. With any new technology, there are always questions surrounding its future. Many within the transportation and transportation safety industry of leery of automated trucks ruling the roads driver free. However, there are many on the other side of the fence that believe that full automation of our road ways could lead to a future in which traffic accidents are a thing of the past. According to the Association for Safe International Road Travel, there is an average of 1.3 million fatalities due to car accidents per year as well as another 20 to 50 million injuries. If full automobile atomization is as safe as many propose it could be, this could eliminate nearly all of these unfortunate incidents.

Vehicle autonomy Is not just a matter of safety, but also will have major widespread financial impacts that will be felt worldwide. Currently, there are 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States alone and the trucking industry employs an additional 8.7 million people. This makes it one of the largest industries in the country. With automounts trucking, all bets are off with hours of service. No longer would driver fatigue factor in to the industry. However, it would potential leave three and a half million people jobless. Both sides of the economic coin need to be considered in the following decades as we progress further toward autonomy.

Tesla is also making waves within the industry in the realm of fuel efficiency and limiting vehicle emissions. Tesla is breaking into the market with a series of electric class 8 trucks and a nation-wide network of charging stations. Tesla’s current projections are showing that by 2020, 10% of all trucks globally will be electric. This figure is expected to be even larger in Europe and China where it is projected to be up to 12% of the market.

As aforementioned, vehicle safety, efficiency and autonomy are surely going through a major renaissance and will continue to do so in the upcoming decades. However, emerging technologies might take a big chunk of the package delivery market out of the hands of the trucking companies. Drones have been merging over the past five years as a viable way to do home deliveries of small packages. Amazon and a number of parcel delivery services have been putting money and minds towards developing technologies that will allow them to drop packages right at your door without manpower in the streets.

All of these future technologies will have major impacts on safety and efficiency within the transportation world. They will have major economical impacts both positive and negative. As with all new technologies, there will be a number of eyes watching the technology develop and eagerly monitoring which will revolutionize the market and which will fall by the wayside. If you have any additional question concerning transportation technology and what it can do to help your company, please do not hesitate to contact us at sales@pnglc.com or 717-626-1107 x 3 .