Some logistics and mobility industry heavyweights have formed a group committed to improving the lives and opportunities of working Americans through adoption of autonomous vehicles. The roster of the Partnership for Transportation Innovation and Opportunity includes the American Trucking Associations, Daimler, FedEx, Ford, Lyft, Toyota Motor North America, Uber and Waymo.
At the outset, PTIO has three broad goals:
1.Identify research, programs and policy solutions to help expand the opportunities autonomous vehicles can create for our workforce.
2.Focus on easing the transitions of any affected occupations into new and meaningful career paths, and champion new occupations in the new economy.
3.Focus on the role public policy can play in helping the entire workforce benefit from autonomous vehicle technology.
Automating truck driving could impact millions of workers in relatively unskilled, high-paying jobs. Automated vehicles can threaten jobs, but the risk is lower for freight, because truck drivers do more than just drive trucks. Automation is going to affect everything, as computers get better and better at performing tasks only people currently can do.
