The one thing I don't understand is: "Why don't we make all trucking semi-local?"
It would seem with modern automation that you could place relay stations at roughly 250 mile spacings so a driver can pick up a trailer near home, drive 4 hours out, drop off trailer, pick up new one, drive 4 hours back home, drop off trailer, and go home.
This seems like a much easier nut to crack than autonomous driving. Real estate in a lot of flyover country in America is really cheap. And it has other advantages like gasoline and service are at specified points. Basically, treat trailers like IP packets.
What am I missing? (I suspect some sort of CapEx/OpEx accounting tomfoolery that means everybody wants everybody else to take the risk of actually owning things.)
You're missing the points of failure and the complexity of dealing with them. If the truck supposed to be servicing one leg of the journey has a breakdown, or the driver goes on sick leave, suddenly every container that was to pass via that leg is now stuck. Instead of having 1 spare long haul truck that can do the full journey, you have to have a spare truck per leg (Or you have to send your redundant truck on a long-haul drive to replace the broken truck, and then have them work overtime to catch up with the backlog of containers)
You also lose throughput by introducing potential handover delays. You end up with a bloated admin that is continuously having to fix a shifting constraint as certain legs become bottlenecks, etc.
Part of the justification for the insane expense of the interstate highway system (besides the dubious defense benefits) was that it would act as a check on usurious rates by the railroads. Yes, we could just regulate or nationalize the railroads (that the public largely created via huge land giveaways and other benefits) but it's more American to counter the flaws of one big business welfare program with another: subsidizing auto infrastructure as a giveaway to Detroit and the oil companies.
Trucking isn't always symmetrical. If your current drivers are mostly doing City A to city B to city C, then you need a lot more drivers and half of the time they run empty going back and forth.
It would seem with modern automation that you could place relay stations at roughly 250 mile spacings so a driver can pick up a trailer near home, drive 4 hours out, drop off trailer, pick up new one, drive 4 hours back home, drop off trailer, and go home.
This seems like a much easier nut to crack than autonomous driving. Real estate in a lot of flyover country in America is really cheap. And it has other advantages like gasoline and service are at specified points. Basically, treat trailers like IP packets.
What am I missing? (I suspect some sort of CapEx/OpEx accounting tomfoolery that means everybody wants everybody else to take the risk of actually owning things.)