A Georgia Tech professor is collaborating with Ryder on a data-driven study of the potential impact of autonomous trucking.
Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck, who is the A. Russell Chandler III chair at the school, and his team have spent years developing an On-Demand Multimodal Transit System (ODMTS) to address the first- and last-mile problems in public transportation and provide equitable, efficient, and low-cost public transportation options. The multimodal approach uses small on-demand vehicles to take riders to and from their locations to high-frequency bus and rail hubs. Increasing the use of public transit will not only decrease reliance on personal vehicles and reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions; it will also increase accessibility to jobs, healthcare, education, and fresh food.
However, when executives from Ryder, a logistics and transportation company with more than 235,000 vehicles and 8,600 professional truck drivers, reached out to Van Hentenryck about a collaboration, the research team began to look at the model through a different lens.
“We have been focusing on people mobility and had not looked at other types of transportation,” said Van Hentenryck. “So when Ryder came to us, we were very interested to see if the techniques that we were using for people could apply more generally to freight. In this project specifically, we are looking at how adding autonomous vehicles could unlock additional value.”
One value is potential help for the supply chain.
You can read more about the Georgia Tech-Ryder efforts here.
Source: Georgia Tech News Center
