Despite substantial recent progress, fully automated driving systems that have no safety driver onboard will take at least a decade to deploy over large areas, with gradual expansion likely to happen region-by-region in specific categories of transportation.
This is a key conclusion of a new research brief examining the future of autonomous vehicles, released by the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future. The brief is part of a series of subject-specific research projects by MIT faculty that will help frame America’s national discussion and policies about work, technology, and how to create greater shared prosperity.
Building on the Task Force’s interim 2019 report, “Work of the Future: Shaping Technologies and Institutions,”
MIT Task Force members are providing analysis on topics including
manufacturing, health care, tax reform, skills/training, and emerging
technologies such as collaborative robotics and additive manufacturing.
As the Task Force continues its research, the briefs will respond
to the rapidly changing environment brought on by Covid-19 and its
societal and economic impacts, and will inform the Task Force’s final
report in November 2020.
“Automated driving technologies have promised to disrupt urban mobility
for a long time. Our research explores the impact of autonomous vehicles
on jobs and offers policy recommendations that will ease transitions
and integration,” says David Mindell, co-chair of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, Professor
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Dibner Professor of the History of
Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT, Founder/CEO of Humatics, and co-author of this report.
The brief, “Autonomous Vehicles, Mobility, and Employment Policy: The Roads Ahead,” co-authored by John Leonard,
Task Force member and MIT Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering
and Erik Stayton, an MIT Doctoral Candidate in History, Anthropology,
and Science, Technology, and Society. The research brief draws on
the authors’ research and experience in the engineering, social, and
policy dimensions of automation and autonomy in extreme environments of
the deep ocean and aerospace, as well as years of engagement with the
auto industry, transit, and automated vehicle systems.
The briefconsiders the current state of automated driving
technology and its potential impact on jobs. Despite substantial recent
progress by the industry, fully automated driving systems that have no
safety driver onboard will take at least a decade to deploy over large
areas, even in regions with favorable weather and infrastructure; winter
climates and rural areas will experience still longer transitions.
Expansion will likely be gradual and will happen region-by-region in
specific categories of transportation, resulting in wide variations in
availability across the country.
Automated vehicles should be conceived as one element in a mobility mix,
and as potential feeders for public transit rather than replacements
for it, but unintended consequences such as increased congestion remain
risks. The crucial role of public transit for connecting workers to
workplaces will endure: the future of work depends in large part on how
people get to work.
The automated vehicle transition will not be jobless. The longer rollout
time for Level 4 autonomy provides time for sustained investments in
workforce training that can help drivers and other mobility workers
transition into new careers that support mobility systems and
technologies. Transitioning from current-day driving jobs to these jobs
represent potential pathways for employment, so long as job-training
resources are available.
While many believe that increased automation will bring greater impacts
to trucking than to passenger carrying vehicles, the impact on
truck-driving jobs is not expected to be widespread in the short term.
Truck drivers do more than just drive, and so human presence within even
highly automated trucks would remain valuable for other reasons such as
loading, unloading, and maintenance. Policy recommendations here
include strengthening career pathways for drivers, increasing labor
standards and worker protections, advancing public safety, creating good
jobs via human-led truck platooning, and promoting safe and electric
trucks.
Policymakers can act now to prepare for and minimize disruptions to the
millions of jobs in ground transportation and related industries that
may come in the future, while also fostering greater economic
opportunity and mitigating environmental impacts by building safe and
accessible mobility systems. AV operations will benefit from
improvements to infrastructure. Investing in local and national
infrastructure and forming public-private partnerships will greatly ease
integration of automated systems into urban mobility systems.
“Human workers will remain essential to the operation of these systems
for the foreseeable future, in roles that are both old and new,” says
Leonard. “Ensuring a place for human workers in the automated mobility
systems of the future is a key challenge for technologists and policy
makers as we seek to improve mobility and safety, and thereby
opportunity, for all.”
