Nighttime truck-only lanes could ease the supply chain

Drive a rural Iowa highway at 3 a.m. and you can go for miles without seeing another vehicle.

All those unused and empty lanes going to waste might help us solve one of today’s most important transportation challenges. We could designate one lane going each way for use exclusively by semi-automated long-haul trucks during overnight hours, when rural roads are at their emptiest.

While fully-automated vehicles may still be a ways off, semi-automated vehicles could be in wider use very soon. For the transportation industry, this can’t come soon enough. Trucking companies have struggled for years to find enough operators to drive their rigs and that problem is likely to get worse. The American Trucking Association estimates the industry is short around 80,000 drivers, a number that’s expected to double in coming years from retirements.

The shortage means longer shipping times that increase costs, drive up prices, and break supply chains to the point where it becomes a drag on the economy.

Semi-automated trucks could offer a solution to this personnel shortage. Since the truck would drive itself most of the time, the driver would have an easier task and regulations requiring rest time could be eased.

Dedicated nighttime lanes would help even more. The idea is similar to High Occupancy Vehicle lanes found in many metro areas, where freeway lanes are dedicated to carpools or buses during morning and evening rush hours but can be used by any driver during other times.

Pushing trucks to overnight would make for more efficient travel for all drivers by removing highway-clogging trucks during busier daytime hours. With less traffic, overnight trucks also could drive faster to deliver their cargo sooner and form convoys — great for fuel efficiency.

Semi-automated trucks also help increase operator safety by reducing the impacts of crashes resulting from fatigue. Government research has found long driving hours and fatigue contribute to 13 percent to 40 percent of truck-related accidents. Researchers at Fatigue Science have found fatigued truck drivers are four times more likely to speed and 14 times more likely to microsleep, or doze involuntarily for a few seconds while at the wheel. Drivers are less likely to suffer from fatigue in trucks equipped with semi-automated driving technology.

But while the technology is advancing, regulations need to keep up. Governments at all levels should start the process of drafting new laws, policies, and rules that regulate semi-autonomous and eventually fully-autonomous trucks so they can operate efficiently and safely.

For instance, Iowa could increase speed limits at night so trucks can drive faster in dedicated lanes during the overnight hours. And U.S. Department of Transportation regulations that require rest periods for truck drivers — currently three hours for every 11 hours behind the wheel — would have to be modified, since semi-autonomous trucks have drivers who operate the vehicle only occasionally. Since the operator of a semi-autonomous truck is in a less strenuous work environment, the DOT could change its rules to require less rest at less frequency for those drivers.

We recently conducted a study to test the effectiveness of a dedicated overnight truck lane at an intelligent vehicles symposium sponsored by the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers. We gathered existing data on truck traffic between the West Coast and Chicago, a road network with ample miles of little-traveled highway. We found that if mandatory rest times were required after 10 hours instead of 11 and reduced from three hours to two, then two rest sessions could be cut from the driver’s itinerary over the course of the haul. That four-hour reduction would save several hours of road time so the truck would arrive sooner at its destination and save significant amounts of money for the trucking company.

The pressure drivers face to meet tight schedules and sometimes unrealistic delivery times increases stress and the likelihood to speed, which makes crashes more likely. The hours saved with fewer mandatory rest periods would reduce drivers’ stress to meet tight delivery schedules, increasing safety for all drivers.

A rural Iowa road can be a lonely place at night. Governments can take advantage of that loneliness by revising rules and regulations that help trucking companies optimize their fleets while keeping drivers safe with semi-autonomous trucks

Qi Luo is assistant professor of business analytics at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business.