As long as there’s global trade, there will be those firms that facilitate the shipping of products and materials from place to place. Haulage firms and shipping companies perform this quietly vital task for the global economy each day. And that means that there’s a huge market for technology to help improve their operations, safety, and efficiency. In this article, we’ll look at four of the promising technological innovations hitting the sector in 2022 – some of them that have been around for some years and others that are just approaching an MVP.
Collision Avoidance
Fleets operate based on efficient estimations of where they’ll be at certain points in time. One collision, even a minor one, can throw plans in jeopardy and let down dozens of your clients. So, avoiding collisions is important from a business perspective, as well as from a safety standpoint. And there’s technology out there that’s rapidly developing to provide an aftermarket collision avoidance system for truckers. It’s a system that spots hazards as they emerge and helps alert drivers to them. By showing drivers risks and hazards that they might themselves have overlooked, this system could help reduce trucking accidents in 2022.
Real-Time Tracking
Tracking technology has been around for some time. But it’s only in recent years that it has become at all accurate. In 2022, you can expect tracking of your entire fleet to be instantaneous, updating every second and revealing exactly where all of your drivers are at any given moment. This technology, enabled by better 4G and 5G connectivity, and smart sensors that report back to your mainframe incredibly quickly, will help firms instate new systems by which they can plan efficient journeys for their fleet.
Planning Software
As mentioned above, real-time tracking of the type that is only now emerging means that software is being developed that can process these location data points. Because the data is so accurate, the software will be too – meaning that you won’t even have to key in data to show the software where vehicles we are at any given time. It’ll all simply be fed into the system, automated, and ready to digest. Expect, then, more planning software to emerge in 2022 that helps haulage and shipping firms to grasp the opportunity to optimize their journeys, saving cash and delivering a better service to their customers.
Self-Driving Trucks
These may not be on the horizon for 2022, but the technology that will help self-driving trucks eventually take to our roads is already in advanced development. Methods under consideration include “platoons” of four or five trucks following one another along a highway, and driver-assistance algorithms that essentially free the trucker of most of their responsibilities, rendering them more of a co-pilot. This is an exciting time for self-driving technology, and it’s likely to emerge first in trucking, where costs could be greatly reduced through efficiency savings and automation.
Technology is hitting the haulage and shipping sectors in 2022, with exciting developments set to take these firms to the next level in the coming year.
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