Autonomous trucking is readying a change in the industry – and John Esparza has a close-up view of what might look different in the future.
Esparza is the president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association, a group that’s in the state that, by some measures, is the largest in the country. At the same time, driverless trucking companies are setting up shop throughout the Lone Star State.
The efforts around autonomous come as the trucking industry is grappling with real issues around finding enough workers. The American Trucking Associations estimated a truck driver shortage will hit a historic high of just over 80,000 drivers in 2021, according to a statement in October.
Esparza has been president and CEO for about 15 years at the Texas Trucking Association, which has been around since the 1930s. It represents the interest of trucking as it advocates on public policy. Its members include trucking companies.
Can you talk about what you see with autonomous trucking, a trend that's emerging?
It's the future of the industry. It's the future of moving freight across Texas and the rest of the country. It is what it is. There will be drivers involved in that capacity, in that formula as always — but we are in the grasp of a tremendous driver shortage. It's not getting better. You have got a lot of people retiring from behind the wheel. The generation of people that are in retirement now is a big generation, and there are smaller generations in terms of the population that follow. And we've not done a good job of encouraging them to be a part of the logistics network across this country. So there's no question in my mind that autonomous is a component to a solution. But there's not one.
So is really a problem of just rising demand coming out of the pandemic and just people wanting everything delivered to the door?
So businesses large and small are seeing really an unprecedented consumer demand. The freight resources that are needed to meet that unprecedented demand just aren't available. The shortage restricts the availability of delivery of these critical goods, and it could be food, medical supplies. Our thirst for freight is growing so quickly. We can't keep up with it.
What can be done with autonomous?
It is important to know that they're already pulling loads on these busy freight corridors like I-45. And that can be a real lifeline to our supply chain at a time when we're looking for greater capacity. There's got to be greater awareness that we have a problem — and that is we don't have enough truck drivers out there. And these long-haul routes don't just start and end in Texas, but this is across the country. So the things that we're seeing here and how we look to support this, these technologies -- and our government leaders have already worked hard to build a regulatory environment that's friendly for self-driving innovation. I think it's important and to our own curiosity to learn more about it — and how there's opportunity in there — know that aren't driving trucks because it's that technology that's going to continue to grow and provide jobs and moving freight in a way that is most certainly the future.
What happens to the industry and the workers in the future?
This association said we can make this adjustment in policy, but we want to require the use of the most updated in technology — the lane departure systems, L2, L3 level intelligence that we have available to us to make our days safer, make our highways safer.
You're seeing a potential safety upside?
That is a tremendous upside.
If the autonomous is taking over, what can drivers do?
They're delivering first mile, last mile. So instead of like one route a day, maybe they're driving four routes in a day — or four loads in a day — in that area.
