"Where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours per day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day. That means the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost."
This suggests each truck has one driver - the truck stops when the driver stops. Aren't there systems that let drivers pool/share trucks so the trucks can be on the road 24 hours a day?
I think thorstadt was talking about latency: just like express messengers switched horses in the pre-telegraph age, trucks could be handed from driver to driver to keep them running without mandated breaks.
With half-workday legs, a system like that could even allow many relay drivers to get home every day despite driving long-haul loads.
My gut feeling is that this could work in theory, but would never evolve in the framework of a free market economy (whereas a planned economy would tend do everything by train).
This suggests each truck has one driver - the truck stops when the driver stops. Aren't there systems that let drivers pool/share trucks so the trucks can be on the road 24 hours a day?