Overview
California is at a crossroads as the state considers lifting a decade-long ban on heavy-duty autonomous vehicles weighing more than 10,000 lbs. Autonomous trucks promise efficiency and potential safety benefits, but they also raise questions about labor, safety, and oversight for the goods movement industry that is central to California’s economy. To better understand these challenges, this UC ITS white paper synthesizes academic research and insights from interviews with 18 experts across industry, labor, and government. The report explores the trajectories of automation, workforce implications, and policy strategies that can help California steer automation toward the public interest.
White Paper: Industry Pathways and Labor Transitions
The white paper, Autonomous Trucking: Industry Trajectories and Workforce Implications, provides a detailed analysis of how automation is evolving across long-haul and regional freight sectors. It combines literature review, scenario analysis, and stakeholder insights to outline three plausible industry trajectories—gradual automation, hybrid human-autonomy operations, and full autonomy.
Key themes include:
- Technology pathways shaping deployment timelines for autonomous trucking.
- Workforce implications, including potential job displacement, reskilling needs, and changing skill requirements.
- Safety and productivity tradeoffs in mixed human–automated fleets.
- Equity considerations related to rural economies, small carriers, and professional drivers.
The paper situates these findings within the broader policy context of federal AV regulation, state freight planning, and workforce development initiatives.
Project Leads
- Mollie Cohen D’Agostino, Policy Director, UC Davis MoSAIC Initiative
- Dr. Camila Correa-Julian, Postdoctoral Scholar, UCLA Risk Sciences Institute
Publications
White Paper: Autonomous Trucking: Industry Trajectories and Workforce Implications (review draft)
Policy Brief: Guiding the Transition to an Automated Freight Future (Review draft)
Both reports are available through the UC Institute of Transportation Studies.