How AI will shape the sector’s future

How transport looks in 120 years' time will depend largely on the choices we make in the next 10 years to limit and mitigate the effects of climate change, and to guide the use of technology. However there are trends apparent now which, if we manage to realise their full potential, give us a sense of the future.

Technology will play an increasingly large role in transport to the extent that in 120 years far more vehicles will be autonomous. Connected vehicles which respond intelligently to the wireless messages broadcast through the smart road network may not require drivers. However, given Britain's urban landscape, with narrow roads and increasingly dense delivery areas, this autonomy is likely to take different forms for different applications.

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Motorways may be a suitable location for fully autonomous HGVs, but smaller units, including drones and small self-navigating robot trucks will be more suited to residential and urban deliveries. There will still be a role for drivers in managing mobile replenishing stations - trucks which move between strategic locations to reload the final mile units, informed by sophisticated optimisation software. Trucks themselves may become dynamic freight consolidation points facilitating urban deliveries of low weight and size.

Large consignments may be broken into smaller units so that robot-vehicles suitable to inner cities can deliver multiple times - the opposite of today's efficiency measures. We may possibly see further evolution of the pallet network model providing large consolidation hubs outside urban areas but which are used by multiple transport providers or customers. Depots will become self-sustaining, either individually or with facilities as part of the standard industrial park complex.

Rainwater collection, solar panels on rooftops and microgeneration will be commonplace. Rather than recharging heavy vehicles, we will drive through battery-swap stations in which batteries are removed and replaced by robots, backed up by AI interrogation of the battery health and recharging. Indeed, AI will become a standard part of logistics operations, organising shipments, optimising journeys and vehicle deployment, servicing and compliance schedules.

It will be an inherent part of vehicle diagnostics, getting real time reports from every component. It will also remove most customer service interactions, with humanoid robots having developed far more naturalistic speech patterns and understanding. AI will also optimise Hub and warehouse spaces, intelligently directing robots and unmanned FLTs.

This will improve safety by removing people from those situations in which they can most easily be hurt However, it will still require human input because the rules by which AI operates, the machines, robots, drones and batteries stations will still require people to maintain and programme them, and to check that the parameters which have been set for optimised operations are the correct ones. That challenge begins today, as the logistics industry trains and educates the workforce of tomorrow. We need to think carefully about what that workforce will look like - more technicians and technologists, yes, but the social ramifications are far wider.

Paul Sanders, chairman, Association of Pallet Networks