IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/itsdav/qt0vk5t0rw.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Jobs and Automated Freight Transportation: How Automation Affects the Freight Industry and What to Do About It

Author

Listed:
  • Jaller, Miguel
  • Otero-Palencia, Carlos
  • D’Agostino, Mollie

Abstract

The expansion of automation in the U.S. economy is increasingly tangible and will presumably entail positive and negative impacts that are not yet well understood. In the freight sector, there is uncertainty about how and when automation will impact labor. Beyond this, there are further unknowns about what the impacts will be on such freight subsectors as warehousing, long- and short-haul. It is expected that penetration rates of freight automation will vary across subsectors. In some subsectors, new jobs will be created and/or working conditions will improve. Other subsectors will see declining job quality and/or job losses that require workers to transition to new roles or sectors entirely, when possible. Changes in job opportunities and quality will vary within sectors and subsectors, by region, and/or by firm. This study offers an overview and recommendations in three directions. First, despite the uncertainties and based on past and present examples of automation, it provides some insights about strategies that may help impacted workers within and outside of the heavy freight sector transition. Second, it discusses examples of existing public policies that can support a transition for automation-impacted workers. And third, it provides insights on how different freight subsectors are likely to be impacted by automation. View the NCST Project Webpage

Suggested Citation

  • Jaller, Miguel & Otero-Palencia, Carlos & D’Agostino, Mollie, 2022. "Jobs and Automated Freight Transportation: How Automation Affects the Freight Industry and What to Do About It," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt0vk5t0rw, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt0vk5t0rw
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0vk5t0rw.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc Levinson, 2016. "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 2, number 10724.
    2. Marc Levinson, 2016. "The World the Box Made," Introductory Chapters, in: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, Princeton University Press.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andreas Baur & Lisandra Flach & Jasmin Katrin Gröschl, 2021. "Container Shipping in Stormy Times – Analysis and Outlook," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 74(05), pages 59-65, May.
    2. Panagiotis Ypsilantis & Rob Zuidwijk, 2019. "Collaborative Fleet Deployment and Routing for Sustainable Transport," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-26, October.
    3. Bauer, Johannes M., 2018. "The Internet and income inequality: Socio-economic challenges in a hyperconnected society," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 333-343.
    4. Takuma Matsuda & Suguru Otani, 2022. "Unified Container Shipping Industry Data From 1966: Freight Rate, Shipping Quantity, Newbuilding, Secondhand, and Scrap Price," Papers 2211.16292, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    5. Ernest Czermański & Giuseppe T. Cirella & Aneta Oniszczuk-Jastrząbek & Barbara Pawłowska & Theo Notteboom, 2021. "An Energy Consumption Approach to Estimate Air Emission Reductions in Container Shipping," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-18, January.
    6. Alejandra Gómez-Padilla & Rosa G. González-Ramírez & Fernando Alarcón & Stefan Voß, 2021. "An option contract model for leasing containers in the shipping industry," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 23(2), pages 328-347, June.
    7. Niclas Hoffmann & Robert Stahlbock & Stefan Voß, 2020. "A decision model on the repair and maintenance of shipping containers," Journal of Shipping and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-21, December.
    8. Gerhard Streicher & Andreas Reinstaller, 2021. "Die Auswirkungen der Digitalisierung in der Industrie auf den Gütertransport in Österreich," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 67332, April.
    9. Camélia Dadouchi & Bruno Agard, 2021. "Recommender systems as an agility enabler in supply chain management," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1229-1248, June.
    10. Peter North, 2017. "Local economies of Brexit," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 32(3), pages 204-218, May.
    11. Shih-Liang Chao & Hsin-Cheng Kang & Hsin-Yi Wei Chen, 2019. "Applying data envelopment analysis to evaluate of operational efficiency of the container terminals," Journal of Advances in Technology and Engineering Research, A/Professor Akbar A. Khatibi, vol. 5(4), pages 174-179.
    12. Notteboom, Theo E. & Parola, Francesco & Satta, Giovanni & Pallis, Athanasios A., 2017. "The relationship between port choice and terminal involvement of alliance members in container shipping," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 158-173.
    13. Nowińska, Agnieszka & Schramm, Hans-Joachim, 2021. "Uncertainty, status-based homophily, versatility, repeat exchange and social exchange in the container shipping industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 524-536.
    14. Håkon Osland Sandvik & David Sjödin & Thomas Brekke & Vinit Parida, 2022. "Inherent paradoxes in the shift to autonomous solutions provision: a multilevel investigation of the shipping industry," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 16(2), pages 227-255, June.
    15. Rosolino A. Candela & Peter J. Jacobsen & Kacey Reeves, 2022. "Malcom McLean, containerization and entrepreneurship," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 445-465, December.
    16. Gmeiner, Robert & Gmeiner, Michael, 2021. "Encouraging domestic innovation by protecting foreign intellectual property," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    17. Cooper, Adam C.G. & Lioté, Laurent & Colomer, Chloé, 2023. "We need to talk about engineering policy," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    18. B. Adenso-Díaz & N. García Álvarez & J. A. Lago Alba, 2020. "A fuzzy AHP classification of container terminals," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 22(2), pages 218-238, June.
    19. Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, 2019. "Deglobalization 2.0," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18560.
    20. Marta Gonzalez-Aregall & Kevin Cullinane & Inge Vierth, 2021. "A Review of Port Initiatives to Promote Freight Modal Shifts in Europe: Evidence from Port Governance Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-19, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt0vk5t0rw. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.