On This Waterfront, Robot Longshoremen Are the New Contenders

April 25, 2016 — 12:01 AM EDT Updated on April 25, 2016 — 2:45 PM EDT

On one end of a dock at America’s busiest port, tractor-trailers haul containers through dense, stop-and-go traffic. Sometimes they collide. Sometimes the drivers must wait, diesel engines idling, as piles are unstacked to find the specific container they need.

A few hundred yards away, advanced algorithms select the most efficient pathway for autonomous carriers to move containers across the wharf. The four-story-high orange machines cradle their cargo, passing quietly within inches of each other, at speeds as fast as 18 miles an hour, but never touching. Self-driving cranes on tracks stack the containers and then deliver them to waiting trucks and trains with minimal human intervention.

TraPac LLC’s Los Angeles marine-cargo facility demonstrates how autonomous technology could revolutionize freight transport as much as or more than personal travel. TraPac’s equipment doubles the speed of loading and unloading ships, saving money and boosting profits. Their impact is rivaling that of containerization, which eliminated most manual sorting and warehousing on docks after World War II.

“Self-driving won’t just rebuild the current freight system, it will create a whole new way of thinking about it,’’ said Larry Burns, a former research and development chief at General Motors Co. and now a consultant at Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit.

“It will happen sooner with goods movements than with personal transportation, because the economics are crystal clear.’’

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-25/on-this-waterfront-robot-longshoremen-are-the-new-contenders