Munich Milos Nesic is sitting in his office, the large screen in front of him shows a parking lot. His office chair: a replica truck seat with a steering wheel, pedals and gear lever. A coffee mug hangs to the left of the emergency brake, ready to hand. On the right are several buttons. Milos Nesic presses the one with the red T.
His colleague Bernd Weißenböck immediately receives a signal via mobile phone. He’s behind the wheel of a real truck 30 kilometers away and looks at the real parking lot. He now knows that Nesic wants to take over. This is commented on again via headsets: “I request control,” says Nesic. Weißenböck unlocks the truck and says: “Confirmed”.
The man in the office now controls the truck from Munich, the man in the truck in the small town of Petershausen can take his foot off the pedal. Today he will primarily be maneuvered back and forth – Weißenböck only sits in the cockpit so that he can intervene in an emergency.
The two trained professional drivers working for the Munich start-up Fernride are practicing for a job at VW. It is a reality test for what three graduates of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) came up with: Jean-Michael Georg and Maximilian Fisser researched for years before they turned the idea of truck remote control into a business idea with company boss Hendrik Kramer.
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The truck uses a number of sensors to record the surroundings on the VW factory premises.
Over the next ten weeks, long-distance teleoperators are to steer their vehicle between other trucks, forklifts and pedestrians at Volkswagen and bring finished component parts from A to B in the plant.
You could also say: the truck drivers are practicing for the revolution. The so-called teleoperation is intended to change the logistics industry – and its teaching profession. Fernride could turn truck driving into an office job. And it could control more vehicles with fewer drivers because they can move other vehicles instead of waiting for a load. That would be a huge lever, not only because of the savings.
The logistics industry in Germany is suffering from a massive shortage of drivers. According to the Federal Association of Road Haulage, Logistics and Disposal (BGL), up to 80,000 professional drivers are currently missing, which is almost ten percent of the jobs. And the situation is getting worse: 30,000 people retire each year compared to only about 17,000 people starting their careers.
England shows where this can lead. Supermarket shelves there remained empty last year because freight forwarders could not find drivers. BGL board spokesman Dirk Engelhardt warned in October against running into a supply collapse “with one eye open in Western Europe”.
Fernride and Volkswagen want to anticipate this and counteract the bottleneck right now. “With teleoperation, we would use a driver’s working time more efficiently because there would be no more waiting times until unloading,” says VW spokeswoman Katrin Hohmann. These downtimes are relatively high for internal transports on the factory premises compared to long-distance transport.
The technology: antennas, cameras and colorful stripes
The long-distance teleoperation system consists of three components: vehicle, network and the operator’s workplace, the so-called control station. For the vehicle type, Fernride uses an electric terminal tractor from the French manufacturer Gaussin, which they upgrade with hardware and software components.
The LTE antennas are striking. “We have six redundant live connections to the control center via the conventional mobile network,” says Andreas Kustermann, Teleoperations Manager at Fernride. The network is the central element of the technology. “It’s very, very important that there are no disruptions.”
Eight cameras are installed on the truck so that teleoperators like Milos Nesic can control the vehicle remotely. In the middle of the screen, the teleoperator sees a 180-degree panorama composed of images from cameras on the front left, right and center of the cabin.
Former MAN boss Holger Mandel (left) in conversation with Fernride CEO Hendrik Kramer.
Above that are three close-up shots from a bird’s-eye view. So you can see lane markings and curbs. In addition, two mirror cameras enable a view into the blind spots. As with parking assistants in cars, colored lines show where the vehicle will go when driving.
On the giant monitor at the bottom left, Nesic can also see the latency with which the videos are transmitted. “An image needs just 60 milliseconds to be captured by the camera lens, compressed, sent and displayed,” says manager Kustermann. “It’s relatively fast, blinking takes 200 to 300 milliseconds.”
The project: VW demands the highest standards of security and data protection
Fernride focuses on three use cases: factory premises, logistics centers, port facilities. According to company surveys, these transports generate 5.4 billion euros in sales every year in Europe alone.
At VW in Wolfsburg, Fernride is to transport empty containers and component parts and then take over morning and evening shifts continuously over a period of four weeks. A safety driver stays in the vehicle at all times. Katrin Hohmann from Volkswagen says: “The aim is to check whether a teleoperator can perform the task just as well as a driver who is physically in the vehicle.”
The pilot customer is a stroke of luck for the Munich start-up. “For a customer like Volkswagen, it is particularly important to meet data protection, cybersecurity and security requirements,” says Fernride boss Kramer. A factory site with 20,000 employees and many different road users is one of the most difficult scenarios. “If we meet VW’s requirements, we will also be compatible with every other customer.”
The use cases in logistics centers and ports are meanwhile being tested with DB Schenker and in Hamburg.
The expertise: Experienced logisticians support the management
Outwardly, the 27-year-old doesn’t fit into the truck and logistics business, which is otherwise mostly made up of grey-haired, elderly men. But with his expertise and deep understanding of the market, he amazes and convinces even seasoned logistics managers, investors and specialists. One of them is Holger Mandel, former board member at commercial vehicle manufacturer MAN. “When Hendrik Kramer came into my office at MAN for the first time, I thought: what a lunatic!” he says and laughs. Today he invests his own money, advises the company and opens further doors for Kramer.
The 55-year-old now sees many applications for Fernride’s technology and considers it to be an important building block in the mobility of the future: “Teleoperated driving will help to establish autonomous driving in the market,” says Mandel. And it is also needed permanently: “Every vehicle that is moved needs manual intervention at some point.”
>> Read also: Berlin start-up has been driving cars through Berlin by remote control for two years
Other industry experts take on high management positions. Thomas Bock recently joined as head of operations. He previously managed business processes at Audi subsidiary AID, among other things. In May, Martin Isik will start as the new head of commerce and finance. He was previously responsible for business development in autonomous driving at BMW.
So far, Fernride has raised ten million euros in venture capital. Fly Ventures is also among the investors. Partner Gabriel Matuschka took a close look at the market for autonomous vehicles and tele driving. From his point of view, what is exciting about the people of Munich: “Fernride can solve a problem very, very quickly by teleoperating on a factory site.”
Relief for truck drivers: family instead of service area
The logistics industry association BGL continues to focus on better working conditions for truck drivers in traditional business in order to counteract the driver shortage. “We do not see the topic of automated driving as a starting point for short-term alleviation of the driver shortage,” says CEO Engelhardt. Too many questions about the reliability and usability of the new technologies are still open.
>> Listen to Handelsblatt Disrupt: Why Vay founder Thomas von der Ohe switched from autonomous driving to remote control
However, nothing will convince Milos Nesic to return to the old world any time soon. Before the Serb came to Fernride, he toured Europe as a truck driver.
He still remembers how he noticed the job advertisement for “teleoperator/security driver” while on leave. He made the job interview straight away for the next morning. “It was so special that I interrupted my vacation and drove 1,300 kilometers to Munich.”
His motivation to do everything right in Wolfsburg is perhaps the strongest: “I don’t want to be a father who only sees his family on weekends.” If driving a truck becomes an office job, he no longer has to.
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