- 20 February 2012
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Rio Tinto To Use Driverless Trains In 2014
20 February 2012 Posted By anthonyp
As we reported not long ago Australian Mining giant Rio Tinto is planning on introducing 150 driverless trucks. Now it seems they are pushing driverless technology even further by aiming to make a large number of their trains completely driverless between 2014 and 2015. This change will cost the company $478 million AUD and could lead to 500 train drivers losing their jobs or being reassigned. It’s a lot of money for Rio Tinto to be spending, however, newspapers have reported that Rio Tinto’s train drivers are being paid $200,000+ as of 2o11, meaning if the change goes smoothly it will make its investment back by 2020.
It seems to me that when the price is right Rio Tinto is pretty keen to pioneer various forms of driverless technology. If this change is competitive then towards the middle and the end of the decade we can expect to see a lot more companies and public transport systems upgrading to this sort of technology.
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