Autonomous Trucking: Workforce-Safety Dynamics and Policy Implications

Autonomous trucks raise complex and interconnected questions about public safety and the future of labor. This white paper examines this safety and workforce connection through a review of multidisciplinary literature and findings from expert interviews to evaluate three automated trucking pathways: driverless trucks, truck platooning, and automated driving assistance systems (ADAS). A central finding is that human autonomy teams will remain integral across all three trajectories. Humans will co-design, test, supervise, and maintain these systems, playing enduring roles in pre-drive, front-line (including in-vehicle), and remote (off-vehicle) settings. These roles represent durable labor categories whose scope, skill requirements, and job quality will be shaped by regulatory design choices that also influence public safety outcomes. This paper finds that partial automation is likely to expand more rapidly than fully driverless operations, creating near-term opportunities to leverage ADAS technologies to improve safety and workforce retention. Investments in retraining and education can help workers transition into emerging roles, while advances in ADAS and ADS safety standards should explicitly address risks to both workers and the public. Greater coordination across government, labor, and industry will also be essential to implement these strategies and ensure that autonomous trucking supports higher-quality jobs and leads to safer, more resilient goods movement systems.