On the gains of using autonomous trucks for freight transport

Abstract

The world is on the edge of an economical breakthrough with the emergence of autonomous cars. Such vehicles do not, or for a very short time, require the driver’s attention or even not require a driver at all. This new era of vehicles is largely promoted by Tesla’s eccentric CEO Elon Musk and the promotion of the S 3 X Y series of vehicles which include an autopilot mode. In parallel to the emergence of autonomous cars, autonomous trucks are also in development and are likely to revolutionize the transport sector and in particular freight transport. Again, Tesla wants to be a pioneer in this domain with the Tesla Semi, which is supposed to arrive around 2021 on the market. Autonomous vehicles are expected to improve road safety by drastically reducing the number of incidents. Furthermore, they are likely to be an excellent ally in the fight against climate change by improving the road transport efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this work is to emphasize the gains of using autonomous trucks over regular trucks for freight transport. These gains are mainly based on the prime costs of such trucks but also, in a lesser extent, to the greenhouse gas emissions. To do so, two similar trucks, one with a driver and an autonomous one, are compared for different delivery situations, from national to international level. While the autonomous truck can drive continuously, the driver is submitted to the European legislation on driving and working hours. Their respective journey, which visits a set of n clients selected randomly, is computed by minimizing either the driving time or the driving distance. To each route, a monetary cost is associated which serves as a basis for the comparison between the two trucks.