Self-Driving Truck Corridor From Manitoba To Mexico?
A special corridor for the new self-driving trucks has been proposed, from Mexico to Manitoba.
(Daimler's self-driving truck)
The plan is for an autonomous vehicle corridor along Route 83, which runs north-south through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. The road then continues into Manitoba.
Marlo Anderson with the Central North American Trade Corridor Association says members are working to turn the idea into reality.
A study into the feasibility of the project is being planned and Anderson says the group wants to travel to communities along the corridor to gain support.
"One of the challenges we have here in North Dakota is that we have a lot of energy production going on right now, but not enough pipelines to carry the oil from North Dakota to its destination point," he said.
That means other commodities, such as grain, need to fight for space on trains. A separate corridor could relieve that pressure, he said.
"We're hopeful that, working with the Canadian government, the Mexican government, the United States, we can create some kind of automated way ... (to) streamline that process of border crossings."
Fans of Stephen King may recall his short story Trucks , which described a rebellion by autonomous trucks (brief movie clip below).
(Stephen King's 'Trucks' 1997)
So, maybe a separate corridor may be a good idea!
Update 15-Oct-2016: See the electrotruck from Poul Anderson's 1956 short story The Corkscrew of Space. End Update.
Update 10-Dec-2016: See the automatic truck from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer. End Update.
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