Opinion: Driver Shortage Can Be History by 2020

By Doug Hayden

CEO and Founder

Data Driven Shipping

Walter O’Brien has the fourth-highest IQ ever recorded, and I recently had the chance to meet him at an entrepreneurial event on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. His life inspires the hit television show “Scorpion.”

Walter uses mathematical algorithms to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. After meeting him, I began to wonder how Walter would solve the driver shortage currently facing the transportation industry.

Specifically, how can there be 30,000 unfilled positions in the trucking industry that pay a salary of at least $45,000, and no one seems to want these jobs?

While I don’t have Walter’s IQ, meeting him motivated me to give this some thought, and I think there is good news on the horizon.

I predict there won’t be a driver shortage in 2020, and it won’t be because Google has provided robot drivers. Changes in technology, sentiment analysis and global sourcing will solve the problem. In fact, I believe there will be a segment of the driver population who are “ICDs” — as in interchangeable drivers. More on that later.

The 2014 predictions of the future of technology pretty much have come true. Data is king, data analytics is thriving, cloud computing is the norm, social media are an integral part of business, and sentiment analysis is collected on a second-by-second basis.

How does this all affect trucking in 2020?

The year 2020 truly will be the year of the corporation. We now have 50 companies with sales greater than $50 billion and in 2020, we will have at least 20 with sales of more than $100 billion. Consolidation has happened in every industry, and trucking is no exception.

That’s not to say there won’t be thousands of smaller trucking companies, but a few megalogistics companies will dominate. The exchanges will have been updated, and each segment of placing, fulfilling and shipping an order, recording OSDs (overages, shortage, damages) and getting paid will be touched by the future of technology.

Quantum computing will change everything. The old binary system based on ones and zeros will be replaced with the advance of the cubit, a building block of quantum physics.

This will affect trucking in a variety of ways. The increased computing power will affect the servers, which will affect the exchanges.

Information asymmetry still will exist with governments and large corporations holding the best cards, but this will be combined in the marketplace with a “fairness algorithm.” It will be possible to predict outcomes of freight never before possible. Equilibrium in the market will be closer than ever. Keeping with the “Internet of things,” anyone will be able to play in this market. The knowledge associated with a potential order will be sold the same way a broker/forwarder sells a load today. The data are worth almost as much as the load itself.

I know a person with an anxiety disorder who graduated magna cum laude from a private college and decided to drive a truck. He kept meticulous records of every shipper he picked up for or delivered to. He cross-referenced all the data with the SIC (standard industrial classification) codes of the companies he serviced. He legally tried to obtain as much data as he could from other drivers at truck stops, warehouses and cafés. He didn’t view his job as driving a truck as much as a moving lab capable of recording data pertinent to the trucking industry.

He plans to resell this information, in some cases over and over. Data is king. Who owns it? Who can resell it? The law always trails technology. My advice is to prepare now for the coming data revolution and increase your digital fitness.

Whether you have one truck or 1,000, a data-driven strategy can be put in place. Currently, only 20% of data is structured, and 80% is unstructured (i.e., images, sounds, texts). This ratio will totally change in 2020, so start preparing now. Think of your trucks as mobile labs and your drivers as data collectors. Data mine all the current information your company has — legacy data — and triple your budgets for firewalls and IT training. Prepare for the coming flood of unstructured data.

The year 2020 will be the year of the drones. Thermal imaging and quantum computing will allow drones to hover over all 50 states. It will be possible to pinpoint and verify every truck, car and driver using the highways. A portion of the data will be shared. Players accepting the grid protection will benefit with fewer overages, shortages and claims and new and better payment methods. Thousands of new players will join the industry with the megaplayers controlling the exchanges and taking their cut.

Interchangeable drivers seem far-fetched now, but think about how Uber and Lyft have changed the taxi industry. How can we get drivers home more often? How can we treat drivers better? How can we customize drivers’ experience and personalize their time in the cab to reduce boredom or homesickness? How are they feeling? How transparent is the payment method? How else can drivers benefit themselves and their companies while they are on the road?

Data Driven Shipping, based in San Diego, provides contact data for the logistics industry.