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Under the hood, a quiet technological revolution is underway that is dramatically transforming the trucking industry—and by extension every industry that relies on it to move their goods from point A to point B.
Cloud Based Computing and Analytics
Often, people think of technology as strictly hardware and gadgets. However, the significant increase in capabilities and enhancements in architecture for cloud-based computing and business analytics dramatically affects the transportation industry.
For years, other technologies offered plenty of data that could be utilized, but companies rarely were able to capture and organize that data. The sophistication of software and data architectures now allow all the data to be effectively controlled and manipulated to generate not only detail status of activity and process flow, but predictive and suggestive advice to proactively improve operations and stop problems before they occur. The cloud helps companies to eliminate computing power and infrastructure costs. Even the trucking industry is now fully harnessing the value of data analytics.
Drone Delivery and Driverless Cars
Driverless vehicles, on the other hand, are an advancement that may affect the logistics and transportation industry sooner rather than later.
Several companies have already tested driverless cars on the open road (including Google), and there are a number of test facilities in the U.S. where the technology is being further developed. Several auto manufactures have also introduced semi-autonomous driving capabilities in their vehicles (Tesla is a prime example). And Uber’s Otto division is already testing driverless trucks for logistics and delivery applications.
By eliminating the need for a driver, logistics companies could address the driver shortage and greatly improve safety by reducing or eliminating the possibility of driver fatigue.
With technology driving the trucking industry into the future, trucking companies and fleet managers must incorporate emergent tech and process innovations to stay relevant and retain their competitive edge!