Självkörande fordon : En fallstudie av positiva och negativa ekonomiska och socialaeffekter av införande av självkörande lastbilar i ett transportföretag.

Sammanfattning: The transport industry is facing major challenges as customers strive for high quality services and fast deliveries. Therefore, transport companies started investing in new innovations to be able to satisfy the customer's requirements. Moreover, increased competition between transport companies forces companies to be able to create new profitable transport solutions in order to survive in the free market. Meanwhile, society is demanding increased transport safety on the roads to reduce accidents that put people's lives in danger. In this study we analyze how self-driving vehicles are a solution that can help companies meet the requirements of both customers and the society. A self-driving vehicle is a vehicle that drives completely automatically without the need for a driver behind the wheel.  This solution proved to be able to help companies reduce their expenses by decreasing the number of truck drivers they employ. The increased trade forces transport companies to be able to deliver goods rapidly to customers. Therefore, quick solutions are required to be able to meet the increased trade. The application of autonomous vehicles can provide an advantage for companies to be able to deliver goods continuously without having to adapt to driving and rest times that reduce the utilization of the trucks. This innovation will also create new professional areas that will increase the employment rate. At the same time, there are positive effects introducing autonomous vehicles into society.  Self-driving vehicles have higher safety than normal vehicles because self-driving vehicles can, in comparison to normal vehicles, drive longer distances and the risk from human factors disappears. This study has used scientific articles, daily newspapers and empirical material in order to answer the objectives.  The empirical material is a case study of a transport company that offers transport solutions for both private customers and companies.  Three interviews have been conducted with employees in different positions in the company. The result shows that the introduction of self-driving trucks has both positive and negative economic and social effects on the company - the savings regarding personnel costs as well as increased productivity and reduced transport times. On the other hand, self-driving trucks could create mass unemployment among truck drivers as well as new job opportunities in completely new areas.