Virtual truck driving simulator

8 minutes

by Paul Cotter

Since 2019, the US transportation sector has been experiencing a downturn. Despite the fact that businesses like Amazon and e-commerce firms are straining the already fragile trucking sector, it will need close to 90,000 more drivers to meet demand in this decade.

The simulator provides new hires with onboarding, driver evaluation, and training in addition to providing veteran drivers with annual refresher training.

The VR truck driving simulator will also be useful for commercial driving schools, which will be able to replace most of the time new drivers spend training in cabs and yards in the US and Canada.

According to a 2019 report by Brandon Hall Group, there is a surge in the usage of virtual reality (VR) as a teaching tool in high-risk professions where operator or driver errors can result in major property damage and deaths.

According to the report, virtual truck driving simulator technologies will be a top priority for learning over the next 24 months for businesses. As a part of fundamental safety training, UPS began placing drivers in virtual reality (VR) simulators in 2017. To provide drivers with immersive learning possibilities, other trucking firms are turning to truck driving VR simulation businesses.

The products now on the market have two issues. They first give drivers a nauseated feeling minutes after exposure, which causes them to spend a very short amount of time on job and negates the requirement for skill development throughout driver training. They are not intended to deliver or measure the crucial components of the entry-level driver training program, hence they are not contextually suited to address the driver shortage.

By integrating its new simulator with training goals and installing several safeguards to do rid of "cybersickness," the bad feeling that commonly arises from current-generation simulators.

The new simulator will completely cover the mandated entry-level training (MELT) material for Canada's in-yard and in-cab components. Using a simulator, drivers might be able to complete the whole in-yard and in-cab MELT curriculum, which normally takes 74.5 hours to complete, in just 27 to 36 hours. They could then repeat specific simulator courses or acquire further experience behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle to make sure they are truly adept across the board. This is a suitable use case since simulation really builds competence more quickly than traditional training because of the experience's enhanced attention.

The simulator is anticipated to lessen collisions and fatalities, address the driver shortage through efficient and focused training, engage a new generation of drivers, reduce operating costs for carriers, and lessen the environmental impact by offsetting the greenhouse gas emissions of hundreds of trucks.