YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County commissioners want local planners and lawmakers to put the brakes on self-driving vehicles because of potential effects on the local and regional workforce.

Their comments come on the heels of a Wednesday seminar at Youngstown State University’s Williamson College of Business Administration, “Technology Takes the Wheel.”

At that event, Jennifer Ryan, American Automobile Association’s director of state relations; Dave Hobbs, senior field trainer and curriculum developer for Delphi Technologies; and Jim Kinnick, Eastgate Regional Council of Governments’ executive director, spoke about the technology that is bringing more automation to the roads.

Kinnick said he couldn’t speak to the effects the tech could have on the local job force, which already has taken hits after losses in the steel and auto manufacturing industries.

Without proper planning, the up-and-coming industry could mimic the hits this area took with the decline of the steel industry, Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti, said.

While the technology isn’t ready to send fleets of tractor-trailers gliding across American highway systems just yet, advances are being made every year.

HOW MUCH TECH?

A ranking scale of one to five classifies the amount of automation in vehicles, Ryan said. A “one” means there is zero automation in the vehicle, while a “five” means the vehicle is so automated that drivers are no longer needed, only passengers, because there isn’t a a steering wheel or levers for the brakes.

The technology available now in newer-model vehicles is probably around a “three,” Ryan said. Driver-assistance features such as adaptive cruise control that slows based on the traffic in front of the vehicle, automated emergency braking, self-parking technology and lane departure warnings, and corrective assistance are already a reality, but still leave most of the control in the hands of drivers.

Models on the market now use cameras and radar to monitor for obstructions, slow for traffic and stay within a lane — cameras and radar that rely on ultra-precise calibration in order to function correctly.

A system that is calibrated with an error of one degree could prove fatal, Hobbs said.

A person may be able to tell if another person is standing in the road and apply the brakes. But a miscalibration could lead to the vehicle “thinking” the person is on a sidewalk and continuing forward — in the worst-case scenario — or the system may “think” a person actually standing on a sidewalk is in fact in the road and brake for no reason at all, Hobbs said.

In order to ensure mechanics can work on the newer vehicles, there is a push to make universal adapters to run calibration tests because each of the car manufacturers have their own proprietary technology, Hobbs said.

Mechanics may need special or extra training in the future to work on the cars outside of a dealership setting and even something as simple as a windshield replacement could get more complex as time goes on and censors and cameras find homes in windshields.

That could mean new specialized education programs offering varying levels of certifications to work on vehicles with more automated tech, Hobbs said.

POTENTIAL JOB LOSSES

There is concern that, while some jobs could change, others might disappear.

Mahoning commissioners Anthony Traficanti, David Ditzler and Rimedio-Righetti said they worry lawmakers and local business and planning organizations — such as Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber — should be doing more to plan, predict and buffer the local workforce from potential job losses in the transportation fields.

“The only way this should advance is if it can be done in a way that doesn’t kill jobs or wages, and if it is absolutely bulletproof when it comes to safety. And as we know with the tech industry, the technology is rarely as safe and progressive as they claim,” Traficanti said.

Traficanti said the lane-correct feature in his vehicle recently jerked his vehicle so hard he thought he’d hit black ice. He wasn’t veering out of the lane, but there was snow along the road, which he thinks may have been the cause.

Even with proper studies and planning, Ditzler said he isn’t a fan.

“I won’t even use the self-checkout lane at the grocery store. I am not in favor of any technology that eliminates jobs,” Ditzler said.

While the region may be a distance away from seeing any job losses in the transportation sector because of automation, Goldman Sachs predicts 300,000 jobs in the field are expected to be lost by 2025. And the technology could eventually threaten 1.7 million jobs in trucking, according to a White House analysis published in 2016.

YOUNGSTOWN SHUTTLE

A driverless shuttle is expected to be in operation by 2021 in downtown Youngstown as a part of the $10.85 million federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development grant, part of a $26 million project over the next three years to right-size the city’s streets and improve accessibility for pedestrians.

While the shuttle will be automated, an attendant will be on board.

But employees such as attendants on a public transportation system or cargo loaders for tractor-trailers have the potential to be considered less skilled than drivers, leading to less pay, less spending in local economies and fewer tax dollars in local coffers — while profits grow for the companies that can afford the tech, according to the 2018 Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Report compiled for the Ohio House of Representatives.

While the storage, categorization, organization and compilation of data connected to an autonomous vehicle industry may eventually become an industry of its own — because the vehicles will be collecting data and companies will want to have it analyzed — the jobs likely will require far fewer people and there is no assurance the positions will be available to regions or groups of people that are hardest hit by the job losses.

Truck driving occupations offer higher earnings than other jobs typically held by workers with a high school diploma, according to the Economic Policy Institute. An October EPI article outlines how the job losses are likely to hit black and Hispanic men harder than their white counterparts.

WAGES AND LOSSES

“To sum up, truck driving is potentially an industry where rapid automation may lead some workers, disproportionately black and Hispanic men, to face displacement and its associated costs. Policymakers need to be prepared to mitigate the harmful effects on the workers affected by such displacement,” the article states.

Further, the 17,000 bus drivers in Ohio are on average paid more than the state’s median wage, up to 63 percent higher, according to the report for the House of Representatives.

“The elimination of these middle-class jobs will leave many otherwise low-skill workers displaced, in dire need of retraining in order to transition to other industries and secure new employment prospects,’ the report states.

If lawmakers and policy makers can address negative effects on the labor market and the broader economy by this first wave of labor displacement and economic change, “then Ohio will be much better positioned to handle more widespread and more severe displacement and economic change, as advanced automation and artificial intelligence exponentially accelerates in the coming years,” the report states.

Failing to plan for the changing economy could create political and social unrest, the report concludes.

“This report cannot overstate the importance of preparing a framework to manage the displacement of labor and broader economic changes on the horizon. If the General Assembly fails to keep its eye on the ball and allows these issues to go unaddressed, Ohio will be staring down political and social unrest in the coming years,” the report states.

rfox@tribtoday.com