Fitting New Needs and Requests of Transport-Related Professions: The Freight Industry and Truck Drivers' Profession
Authors: Neto Catarina , Simoes Anabela 
Published: June 2024

Nowadays society, being characterized by fast technological development, is imposing new educational needs at all educational levels. Therefore, the human resources for a demanding labor market must be prepared for throughout life learning, adapting each one’s activity to the technological development, and have digital skills be creative, and adaptable to technological advances and the related changes, as resources to anticipate, adapt, react, create, and improve in their working context. In this era of change, human capital needs are evolving quickly, imposing new challenges and perspectives on the new generation of students to be qualified in the current labor market. The most advanced industries, like the Automotive and the Transport Sectors, need to attract and keep a skilled and creative workforce, with the motivation and ability to learn throughout life, be comfortable with fast change, and work in an interactive and collaborative environment to design and manage highly complex sociotechnical systems. The new challenges of Industry 4.0 and 5.0, in both the automotive industry and transport sectors, call for educational areas and models that optimize and value soft skills (e.g. cognitive flexibility, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, adaptability to change, initiative, creativity, and efficient communication in a digital environment). These are competencies and skills for project management and problem-solving, knowledge allowing for understanding the human-system interaction and cooperation, communication skills in multidisciplinary teamwork, adaptability to changes, and an enormous motivation to keep learning throughout life. This interdisciplinary approach imposes, both on research and practice, a need for multidisciplinary teams that are now a reality. So far, our educational system is composed of different levels until the end of high school followed by higher education choices. Thus, there is a gap that should be bridged. As an example, it should be referred to the truck driver’s profession, which is disappearing in most developed countries. The freight industry is fighting to hire a new truck driver. The existing ones are approaching retirement age, and the older ones refuse to learn to work with new in-vehicle technology. However, truck drivers are necessary, having a set of competencies that seem out of their function, generally assumed as just driving a truck. Vehicles equipped with connectivity and cooperative technology, such as modern trucks, particularly, truck platooning systems, require truck drivers with competencies to deal with the in-vehicle and infrastructure-integrated technologies, as well as a diversity of communication requests. If we compare the truck drivers’ profession with the aviation sector since its history, there is a strong difference. The recruitment of a pilot and a truck driver has been very different since the beginning of both professions. However, the new technological requests in the freight industry are changing the conditions to embrace the truck drivers’ profession. Thus, the creation of specific courses addressing the new competencies required for the truck drivers profession should be taken into consideration. This paper intends to propose new concerns, requests, and solutions for improving the freight industry.