(01 Feb 2023, 11:58 am)Michael wrote Stagecoach set to expand autonomous vehicle trials more widely with government funding announced for new projects

https://m.stagecoachgroup.com/media/news...02-01.aspx

This is something that we should all be very wary of. The likes of Stagecoach aren't pushing ahead with autonomous vehicles merely because the technology is available or it's a good thing, it's because it reduces (and eventually removes) their most expensive overhead - labour.

From their point of view, they'll be looking at why they have one person to drive every bus, when you could have one or two people remotely monitoring a handful of them. It's not too dissimilar to what supermarkets have done, where instead of having 30 checkouts, they've got one or two people monitoring 30 self-service checkouts.

In an area like Sunderland, the bus operators combined will likely be second only to Nissan, in the amount of local people that they employ. If you start to reduce or remove that work, where are the alternative opportunities for unskilled or semi-skilled workers? Of course, it's not only about keeping bus workers in jobs, it's also the knock on impact that reducing the reliance on jobs has on the local economy. If people don't have money, then there's no money for goods and services.

I'd hope the Unions are in discussions with the employers around the future of this technology.