Editorial: Present and Future at TMC

The adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” is one that can sum up the discussion at the Technology & Maintenance Council’s annual meeting perfectly. Except when it doesn’t at all.

The growing shortage of truck technicians remained one of the most discussed topics at this year’s TMC meeting, held from Feb. 29 to March 3 in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We’re suffering a severe shortage of technicians today, and it will probably get substantially worse. We can’t fix it tomorrow, but we can start,” said Douglas White Sr., new TMC chairman and vice president of fleet maintenance for Dunbar Armored.

White said the industry can best address the situation by reaching out to schools — even elementary level — to tout the profession.

Speakers during the conference acknowledged that many more technicians are retiring from the industry than hiring on at the entry level.

Despite the continued discussion, finding the right ways to entice the next generation into the industry remains quite elusive — whether speaking of technicians or truck drivers.

While labor shortages may sound very familiar to readers of Transport Topics, many new buzzwords were in the air of the Music City Center.

Connectivity — trucks connected to fleet offices, dealerships and even highways — was one word heard throughout task force sessions and the exhibit hall.

Some TMC stories in this edition of TT focus on active steering systems and advancements in vehicle-to-vehicle communications. Just a few years ago, those topics sounded futuristic, but listening to industry executives and officials involved in these fields makes it clear that the future is not far off.

The goals of these systems are to make vehicles and roads safer and to improve the efficiency of the industry. They are also building blocks toward the further development of platooning and/or

autonomous-driving trucks, if some speakers at the conference are correct.

The technology discussed throughout the meeting — and on display in the exhibit hall — continues to change at a pace that seemed unimaginable just several years ago.

For the 4,000-plus attendees of the conference, the technological focus can leave them thinking they were more at a science-fiction convention than a trucking conference.

If finding ways to give children and teenagers a glimpse of where the industry is heading can help solve the shortage, sharing conference stories and photos with them may help solve some of the old problems, and help speed the pace of change even further.