Impacts of Automation in the Supply Chain

This chapter presents information on automation in the supply chain, including perspectives from last-mile drone delivery, inland port and multimodal facilities, Business-to-Business (B2B) trucking, and bi-national border operations. The chapter is based on the presentations and discussions at a breakout session at the 2023 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Automated Road Transportation Symposium (ARTS) titled Impacts of Automation in the Supply Chain: Borders, Ports, Intermodal and Last Mile. Panelists were chosen to represent subsectors of the supply chain and share perspectives on policy needs, challenges and opportunities in freight automation, technology maturity, workforce impacts, and potential for cross-sector collaboration.