The Transport Crisis: Inside the Global Driver Shortage with Natalia Corchado from the IRU

In this episode, Lindsey talks with Natalia Corchado from the International Road Transport Union (IRU), focusing on the critical issues facing the road transport sector. Natalia highlighted IRU’s role in advocating for trucking, bus, coach, and taxi industries, and discussed the organization’s efforts to tackle decarbonization, driver shortages, and digitalization amidst a challenging economic landscape. A significant portion of the meeting addressed a global study on driver shortages, revealing that 3.6 million truck driver jobs remained unfilled in 2024 due to an aging workforce and insufficient younger replacements. Discussion included effective driver training programs, working conditions, and retention strategies that companies are implementing to attract and retain drivers. The conversation wrapped up with a look toward the future, emphasizing the need for innovative solutions in addressing labor challenges and improving industry image, while also announcing that the study findings would be available on IRU's website in mid-March.

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Transcript

Hey, welcome to NGT talks today. I'm excited to have a guest from Europe with me today, Natalia Corchado from the IRU. I first found out about this organization when I was at an ATA, the MC conference and the president of their organization spoke and it was an amazing presentation and I wanted to bring Natalia on to talk about all things Europe and worldwide transportation and what they do and what the trends are overseas. We know what they are in America and Canada, but what's the rest of the world facing? So Natalia, welcome to the show. 

Thank you very much, Lindsey, and very happy to be here today. 

Well, tell me about your background, how you got into transportation and what you do. 

Okay, so I'm an economist from Spain actually, and I came into the transportation industry by chance. I mean it was a. I wasn't looking specifically to work in this industry and it was not an industry that I knew before I was working in consulting, but in other industries. And well, I found this job seven years ago and actually discovered how important transportation and especially road transportation is for the logistics industry, but also for the economy and for our lives. And I think this was very visible during COVID So I'm really happy actually to work in this industry. I'm really thrilled. 

Yeah, I agree. It's a wonderful industry that touches every industry. 

Yeah, exactly. I mean all businesses need goods to be transported or we as well need our supermarkets to be filled in shops. So we don't really realize in our real life how much tracking is needed. 

Absolutely. And tell me about your organization. What is your organization and what do you all do? 

So the RU was founded more than 70 years ago. We are the World Road Transport Organization and so we represent the entire road transport industry. So actually not just trucking, but also the road passenger transport, so bus and coach and taxi as well. And we have more than 170 members globally which include national associations such as ATA, for example in the US but also mobility and logistics companies which can be so trucking and bus and coach companies, but also it can be other from other related industries, vehicle manufacturers, service providers and so on. And so what we do is we promote economic growth, prosperity and through. And so more concretely, the services that we provide to transport and logistics companies and to also to our members associations range from representation at European and global level. 

So we advocate for the industry, but also trade and transit tools. We distribute the tier transit tool which facilitates the seamless transportation of goods across countries. And we also promote the professionalization of the industry with driver skills assessments, trainings including eco driving and so on. And we also do comprehensive research on this on topics related to the industry to help our members that we put they have them available through us. And we also organize workshops under our tables on decarbonization, driver shortages and digitalization. I would say these three topics are the ones, the hottest ones let's say now for the industry and the ones we are focusing on. 

And you being an economist, what is the freight market like overseas? I know in the United States we've really struggled with the freight economy the last couple years and we're keep hoping it's going to get better. What's it like for you all over there? 

Well, actually, I mean the global economy has been struggling in the last I would say three years. Economic growth has been weighed down by the war in Ukraine, by high inflation and interest rates which had been dragging household incomes and investments. And this has also impacted the transport demand and so the road transportation industry, transport as a whole, but specifically also as well the road transportation. So in some regions, such as Europe, they were heavily impacted in 2023, but perspectives and economic situation improved in 2024 and it's it is expected to further improve in 2025 with inflation continuing to decrease and so policy rate cuts as well. 

That's great news. Yeah, sorry, that is great news. 

I would also say so this has impacted, as I said, the global economy and so we see a better situation in Europe. However, in other countries that we follow such as Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, 2024 has been still say difficult. And yeah, I would say the US as well. The US was more resilient, let's say in 23 and 2024 and 25 will be worse. But what we can say as well is that globally inflation is expected to continue moderating and most countries are expected to come back to inflation targets by the end of 2025. And so this will support the recovery of household incomes and so it will boost consumption. Also interest rates will decrease. It will boost as well investment. 

There are however some risk the increased as well as some geopolitical conflicts as we know in the Middle East, Ukraine, which could as well in the case of the Middle east increase again disrupt supply chains and also increase again energy prices as the region is very important for energy production. That yes, on principle we expect the situation to improve in 2025. 

Well that is great news because we have really, you know, been struggling and I keep hearing okay, it's going to get better this quarter and then it we just keep kicking the can down the road. Oh, it's going to get better next quarter. It's going to get better. So that's good news that we hope that 2025 is going to have a good outlook. So. 

And yeah, so I just wanted to mention as well that. So the tracking industry is very much related to economic growth. So when we have weak economic growth, these drugs as well the tracking industry. So we expect as well tracking demand to improve as well. 

Great, that's good news. So one of the main things I want to talk about today is training in Europe for the workforce and in particular drivers. We have a driver shortage in the United States. States. And what is it like for you all? 

So as I mentioned, this is a topic that we follow very closely because it is an issue that we've been observing for a long time in Europe. So in 2029 we decided to carry out a specific study on this because there was. So companies kept saying we have a shortage of drivers but we didn't have any figures to really show that this was real. So we decided to carry out this study which is based on a survey to road transport operators, to trucking business and coach companies that are our members or member of our members to try to size the shortage and so raise awareness on the issue. Also strengthen our advocacy to make the profession more accessible and more attractive and to take action to remove existing barriers and to improve drivers working conditions. 

Because as we will maybe talk about later, this is what's causing the shortage. And as well to identify best practices that are being implemented by companies, by governments, by national associations in different countries that we can disseminate and try to. So they can be implemented by other companies elsewhere and help the industry cover this gap. And what. So we just released our latest. Well we are going to release it next week. Sorry. Our latest reports and what we measure through this report is the share of anfield truck driver positions in a certain number of countries. So we started just in Europe but now we are covering European countries plus seven key economies around the world including US, Mexico, Argentina, China, Australia, Turkey and Uzbekistan. And so in 2024, 3.6 million truck driver jobs were unfilled out of total jobs. And this represented. 
S

So the shortage was ranging between 7% and 17% of total position. 

That seems really big. 

Yeah, yeah. And, and so, and it's not all countries so include like we cover 80% of economies in terms of GDP but we still we're, we try to include new countries every year. So this year we incorporated Australia that we don't have. But we would like to have for example Brazil next year. So. Or India, different countries that very big countries that we could would like also to cover. But yeah, so this is an issue globally actually. So it's not only an issue in the United States or in Europe. 

Where can we find this study when it comes out? So it's going to come out mid March. Where can we find this study? 

So we will do a press release with the main key takeaways from the study. But then it is a study that is available for our members. The full report is available for free for our members and it is also available for non members for sale. And it is, you can find it in our website in our intelligence platform. 

Wonderful. I think a lot of people are going to be really interested to read that report and to see what you guys have come up with. I think that's amazing. And so did you say we are in 2024, over a million drivers. With all the countries that you studied in this report, you are short over a million drivers. 

Yeah. So 3.4 million were unfilled out of the total positions. Which actually just to clarify, because ATA is doing as well an estimation on the shortage, their methodology is they calculate what is the driver supply, what is the demand and then what is the gap. How many drivers are, let's say, missing? Well, we, so we are based on a survey and we ask companies. So how many open positions and field positions do you have right now? So it might be that some of these positions they will be able to fill even if it might take very long because they cannot find qualified drivers. But yeah, so there's a difference in methodology. Just for people who might have read the ATA's report, just to mention. So this is currently up and position that cannot be filled which where we measure. 

So this is the volume of freight, this is the number of drivers we would need and this is the drivers that are available. And also what is very alarming is that the truck driver population is really aging in most of the regions, which means there are many drivers that will retire soon and there are not sufficient young replacements because the profession is not attracting sufficient young people to replace those drivers. So it might become bigger and bigger. Also if economic growth follows and transport demand increases, for sure we won't be able to cover those retirements and this will get even bigger. 

So in the United States we are able to give out commercial driver's license to 18 year olds. But you have to stay within your state. You cannot cross state lines until you're 21 years old, what are the qualifications in Europe and what are you seeing in other countries? 

Yeah, so this is one of the requirements to become a truck driver, to have the minimum legal age to be able to drive professionally. And this is actually one of the main barriers to attract young people in some countries because so in many countries this minimum age is still 21, which means that early school leavers or even people who finish their studies at 18 have to wait at least three years until they can become drivers. And most people are not ready to wait three years until they can start a profession and earn a salary. So this is the case for example, in Turkey, in Argentina, in Australia, in some states in Europe. IRU has been advocating for a long time to have this age reduced because by the European Directive on driving license states that. 

So the minimum age is 21 by default, but countries can reduce it if they want in their own countries. So last year Romania, which was the last country to have 1821 as minimum age lowered it to 18, however, just for national transport. And Romaine is actually a country which performs a big share of their operations internationally. So it is the same as you have a bit in the US where you can drive at 18 intrastate but not interstate. So we have still a couple of countries in Europe which allow drivers to drive nationally at 18 but not to do international transport. So this is. And, well, still in Europe it's much better than it was before. But we have still some countries globally that still have this 21 barrier which makes it, which makes the profession are attractive. 

We're losing many people who are going to other professions because of that. 

But in some countries you can be 18 and drive, but you have to stay within your country. 

Exactly. So this is what I was mentioning. So in Hungary and Romania you can drive at 18 but you cannot do international transport. You can transport goods to other countries. And these are countries which are actually doing a lot of international transport. So it's an issue what other countries. 

Can you drive at 18? 

So in Europe, so all the rest then in, as I mentioned, in Australia it can be depending on the state. In some you can, in others you cannot. In China it's 19 at the best because depending on the type of vehicle, it can go up to 22 years old. Mexico it's 18 to drive nationally and Turkey it's 21, Argentina is 21 and Uzbekistan is 18 as well. 

That's really interesting. So next gen trucking, one of the big things that we're doing is trying to prepare Our future driver workforce. And so we've created a whole high school program where a high school student as a senior can get their commercial driver's license. And it's more intensive than somebody just going to get their CDL at a community college. So this builds up to going to get their CDL at the community college. It's 210 hours total for their senior year. It's classroom instruction and 30 hours of driver simulation training. A lot of hands on learning is happening in this class. And then when they graduate they'll be 18 and they go on to get their behind the wheel training at either a private driving school or at a community college. Are there programs like this in Europe? 

Or how does somebody, if I'm 18 years old and I want to become a professional driver, what are my options? How do I, how do I get trained for this certificate, certification? 

So there are also some programs, traineeship programs like the one you mentioned, which are funded depending on the country. Sometimes it's companies who offer those kind of programs where they take young people, they train them, they pay for the cost of the training, theoretical and practical, and then they have some time they work for the company to get hands on experience as well in the job. And they also even earn a salary while doing this program to, to attract young people to this profession. In some cases this is funded by an association or an organization. We see this for example in Ireland. They created as well a program where they connect so they train the drivers. They have a pool of companies, we're looking for drivers. 

And then, so they connect the people, the young people that are being trained with those companies so they can as well have some working experience. And, and so the companies benefit from having these young recruits were well trained. And then the young people, they know they will get a job once they finish their training as well. And they're also, yeah, we see some companies as well that are doing this type of, they're implementing this kind of programs to try to attract young people because yeah, it's very difficult. There's few young people joining the industry. 

So if I'm a young person, like who's the competition? Are they going into other skilled trades or are they going off to university? 

Well, I would say it depends. But yeah, I mean they choose other professions also because the image of the profession is also a main, let's say, challenge that the industry is having. Years ago, in the old times of the drivers, it was actually an attractive profession because drivers had the chance to travel for. Well, not worldwide, but they could get to know new countries, which was something that was not available to everybody as it is the case today. They also enjoyed freedom while today drivers are very much controlled and they feel. They are really a lot controlled. They have the tachograph that records everything they do, the driving and resting time rules. They also have very strict schedules. 

And then if anything happens which was not in the schedule and they are late, even if it's not their fault, then yeah, they feel very not free as they used to be. So it has lost this positive or this benefit that it has before. And additionally, even they say when we, when we talk to drivers that they are not respected. They even feel, okay, no, this was, there's an accident. This was the fault of the driver of the truck. Oh, there are trucks on the road. There are traffic jams because of the trucks. So it's always the fault of the truck drivers. So they are not at all respected. 

And people, even if they are what we have actually a campaign in the IAU where we say that drivers are heroes because we really want to raise awareness on the importance of the industry and the importance of the drivers for all of us to be able to live our normal lives and have access to all the products that we have every day. Also knowing that they are facing very hard working conditions. Sometimes they. We can talk about it later, but they have to face lack of parking, which. This is one of the main issues that is reported in all countries that we studied. So the U.S. Europe, and also of course Central Asia, any other countries. 

So they don't have parkings that are safe and secure where they can park and which are equipped for them to have access toilets, to showers, to. To supermarkets or to restaurants to eat. And this is also especially important for women because there are very few women in the trucking profession today. The US is the best case example where there's 6.6% and that's. Yeah, so it's lower than that in some regions. It's not even 1%. And the safe parking is one of the main concerns of women. So this is something we need to work on if we want to attract more women to the profession. 

Wow, that is fascinating. And I have to tell you all of your issues perfectly model. What we talk about every day in the United States is the image getting hard. It's hard to get young people in. We have an aging workforce. We need truck parking and worse parking spots to make the job Better, Gosh, that, I mean, I'm just shocked at how it really mirrors the things that we face here in the United States. States. It's exactly what you guys face in Europe and across the country. What about the driver pay? I mean, I mean we, in America, we say, hey, this job pays really well and we need more people in it. How, how are, how's driver pay over in other countries? And is this something that's attractive to younger people. 

So. Exactly. Many, many people think that the driver profession is not attracting enough people because salaries are not enough. But in our study we looked at was the average gross salary of truck drivers in each country and compared it to the minimum salary and to the cost of living in each country. And it's over these two in all the countries we studied. And in some countries it is well above the cost of living. For example, in the US it's over 2.3 times the monthly cost of living. Also in Europe, in the Netherlands, for example, it's up to 2.7 times higher than the cost of living. So on another hand, the driver salaries have raised in the latest years a lot. In France, for example, they have raised 8% in 23 versus 22. 

And while inflation was only 5.7% in the same period, so, and even so, we still see a shortage which shows that salaries at least increasing salaries alone will not solve the issue we need. The issue is the working conditions that the drivers have to face. So this is where we need to put the efforts because it's not only the salaries that the working conditions are not worth to, to enter this profession. And also what I also wanted to mention is that this year we carried out a second study in Europe where were serving truck drivers to measure their satisfaction and also asking them about what were their main challenges and the main solutions that they sought, they thought were priority to attract more drivers. 

And so it was surprising to see that 57% of the drivers were very extremely satisfied, which seeing the shortage was surprising. But then when you asked them would you recommend this profession to someone else, then the response was very difficult. So there were many more. So this is what we call an NPS question that is used sometimes to measure satisfaction and loyalty to a product or service. And so the share of what we call detractors, which is people who rate 0 to 6, the likeliness to recommend the profession was much higher than the share of promoters, which are people rating from 9 to 9 or 10, the likeliness. And so the NPS, which is the share of promoters minus detractors was minus 44, so it has to be always between minus 100 and 100. 

So 100 is you have 100% promoters and minus 100 you have 100% detractors. And so we had minus 44, which means we're, we have many more detractors. So drivers who won't. Wouldn't recommend the profession to someone else. And it is also, it was also interesting to see that young people are very satisfied with the truck driver profession. So when they start working in the profession, they are satisfied with the job and they would also recommend a profession to someone else. However, as they get older, their satisfaction level declines, which means that maybe they get tired of facing this difficult working conditions. And also for the older drivers, it might mean as well that they miss the old times where they were more respected, they have more freedom, etc. And it is also the case for women. 

So women are more satisfied than men and they are more likely as well to recommend the profession to someone else. Which also shows that there's also an issue of accessibility. So there might be some barriers and also of image that we need to improve. And in the case of women, this is also related to stereotypes that are present in most of the regions. And so where we don't see women working as a truck driver as we see it as more as a men's profession. And they also fear that they won't be ready to perform some maybe physical tasks, loading and unloading, etc. They can also feel even gender harassment as well. So there are some barriers that we need also to work on if we want to attract more women and more people. 

But then when they are in the profession, actually they are satisfied with it. And interesting. 

So what about the working conditions? 

Really interesting to discover. 

Yeah, abs, it's so interesting. And what about the working conditions? What, what do you all propose to make the working conditions better? To retain more drivers? 

Well, to attract more drivers. So first we need to remove the barriers to enter the profession. So I already mentioned the minimum age and in Europe we are even proposing to allow a driving scheme at 17 year old, so that accompanied young people with an experienced drivers can safely gain practical experience. And then to also reduce this gap of the age where people, young people in school and the age they can start a profession, while of course keeping enough safety standards as well. So that is why we say it has to be always when with an experienced driver, which is also very positive. I mean, we have, there are some studies notably in Germany, with Where this is allowed for car drivers. And the ones who have done this accompanied driving scheme, they. 

They have better safety performance later on when they are already driving compared to the ones who did just training and driving at 18 in the standard way. So this is something we are proposing as well. And as I didn't mention it, but the cost to access a profession so to get the license and professional qualification is also very high. And it's preventing many young people to access a profession. And this is the case in most of the regions as well. It is higher than the minimum salary and the cost of living. And even it is true that they are. We see that some companies are covering the costs. There are also some national incentives in some countries, national subsidies. But this is really necessary if we want to as well attract more people into the profession. 

And in terms of working conditions, we as I mentioned. So the lack of parking is also a very important issue we need to work on In Europe. We have been advocating to have funds to improve the truck parking infrastructure and create new parkings. And were successful in obtaining 300 million euros to do so. But then also a very hot issue now in Europe is the treatment of drivers at loading and unloading sites. Because they are. They have to deal with very strict delivery windows, which means that if there's something unscheduled and they lose a delivery window, they have to wait for hours. And even sometimes even if they're on time, they have to wait very long hours to get their trucks loaded or unloaded. Many times they have to do themselves the loading and unloading. 

They don't even have access to sanitary facilities and sometimes not even access to a safe parking. So this is actually a very important issue. And this was also reflected in our. In the survey we did to drivers. This was ranking as number two issue after the parking. So we have created jointly with the Global Shippers alliance and the. The etf which is the Transport Workers Federation charter to promote the treatment decent treatment of drivers at delivery sites, which is a charter that any company can sign to commit to this set of rules which look into improving the working conditions of drivers and how they are treated at company premises when they load and unload the goods. 

I love that. I think that is such a brilliant initiative that you guys have done. 

And then if we look at what companies are doing is we see many companies that are trying to offer flexible career paths. And this is also important for women because the long times away from home for long distance drivers can be an issue. So maybe not for the young Ones who don't have family responsibilities. But for women and for maybe older drivers which already start to have a family to set up, this might be an issue. So many companies are trying to offer programs to let their drivers choose at each point of their life and depending on their needs if they want to do long routes where they get higher pay or shorter routes that allow them to be more time at home. 

But even if they earn a lower salary, they are also trying to do programs where their employees can move from one position to another. So non driver position to a driver position and then the other way around. So for example, from warehouse position to a driver position, they cover all the costs, they support them in during the training and they still earn a salary. And then if ever they would like to come back to a warehouse position, then they can also do. And also we have some companies which mention, and this is really true, that it is much easier to retain a driver than to attract a new one. So retention is also very important in each mass. It's much easier than trying to get a new one. 

So we have an operator that implemented actually in the United States a Workhound platform, which is a platform to allow to make anonymous service to their drivers. Drivers can, what is not working, what they would like, what they could, what the company could do to improve their daily lives. And then the answers are analyzed by a panel of HR operations and manager and management members and try to trigger corrective actions to answer those needs. And so in this case they have seen really the results of this initiative and their driver turnover has dropped from 50 to 70%. So it had a really strong impact. 

Wow. So 50% to 17. 

Yeah, exactly. So in this case. So one of the requests of their drivers was that their fleet was a bit too old and not comfortable for the drivers. So they upgraded the vehicle quality and well, this was one of the main, let's say measures they implemented. They had as well other programs such as this, they have this flexible career path as well that I was talking about. But yeah, so after they, after this they implemented these measures which was like a three year plan to work on driver shortage and to improve retention because 50% turnover is huge. So they achieved this really good improvements of the turnover. So from 50 to 70. 17. 

Sorry, that's amazing. In, in fact, yeah, Workhound. So I was at a conference last week with the founder of Workhound and it's so important to learn about your drivers and what they're thinking and how they're feeling and making it anonymous so that they don't feel pressured to say not what they're really truly feeling. Are you all facing shortages? I mean, we face shortages in diesel mechanics too, and people working on the trucks. Do you have those shortages as well in Europe or is that strictly the United States? 

Yeah, we see that as well in Europe. Some of our members have been reporting this issue and this year we specifically asked about this in our study. And for mechanics technicians, there was 40, between 44 and 63% companies that were facing severe or very severe difficulties to fill those positions. So it is also an issue, how. 

Do most people in Europe, if they want to become a diesel technician, how do they get trained? Do they do that while they're in high school? Do they have to go to a college to do that? 

Well, we haven't looked into this specifically, but I assume I'm talking about. So from what I see in Spain, for example, there's vocational training that you need to follow, but I'm not sure if there are other ways for you to access a profession. And actually, for example, for trucking, you can see that in some countries there is for to become a truck driver, you have a vocational training that you can follow, while in others you don't have this, you don't have a specific vocational training. Which this is also helping as well to also cover this gap. If you leave the, your you leave school, you have this vocational training you can do and then you become a driver. Well, if you don't have it, then you have a gap there where you don't, you cannot do anything until you're 18. 

So this is also helping as well to, to attract people to the profession. Young youngsters. 

One of the things that we face in the United States is insurance. So somebody can get their cdl but they can't find a company to hire them because they can't be insured. Is that something that you all face as well? 

So what we see in Europe is that. So insurance costs are higher for young drivers. And also this is why we as well advocate for, to change the driving license directive where by default the minimum age is 21. Because this serves insurance companies to justify where they are putting higher premiums for young drivers. But anyway, given the lack of drivers and lack of young drivers, the gap between the increased premium for the young drivers is still paid by companies or is not as high as to, let's say, reject a young applicant to start working in the company just because of this higher premium. 

Interesting. Yeah, that. That is so interesting. Do you all do. Do you all have apprenticeship programs in the United States? We have formal apprenticeship programs through the Department of Labor that have a lot of benefits. And then some companies have their own apprenticeship type programs for drivers. Do you all have programs like that in Europe and in other countries to really train the workforce through? You know, they get their CDL and then they're getting extra training through apprenticeships. 

So, yes, as I mentioned before, it depends on the country. We see that in some countries, there are such programs that are financed by nonprofit institutions or sometimes even by. By. By the state, but in many countries they are not. And in some. Yeah, in. So in many countries, it's companies who can offer this type of programs. But I would say it's not. Yeah, it's not in all cases. This is why we also advocate for having support to. To. Well, to cover the costs. And. And also it is a good way to attract young people so they know that they can do this apprenticeship. They would have their job at the end of their traineeship. They will be trained and. And they would have their. The cost over their training covered that. 

Yeah, that's right. We have to do something different. Right. We can't continue to do the same thing and expect different results. So United States, Europe, other countries, we've got to figure out ways to attract the next generation and really help get them into these good jobs that will help secure their futures. As we wrap up today, is there anything else that is important to share? And I'm really excited about your study that's coming out, and by the time people listen to this podcast, it might be out, and I can't wait to read it, to hear what you all have come up with the same challenges that we face here in the United States. 

Well, as I said, this is an issue globally, and we need to take action, especially so we need to remove access barriers and to improve the treatment of drivers, their working conditions. And we try to create a repository of best practices that we're trying to disseminate. We have a yearly webinar where we invite companies to share what they are doing to improve attraction and retention of drivers and to inspire other companies that could do the same and to improve their results and get more drivers as well. So, yeah, that's what I wanted to say. Also. I would say that in some regions, as we said, the population is aging, but not only the truck driver population or the population overall, which means that the truck driver, the young people in these countries might not be enough to cover the gap. 

And we might need to bring people from other countries, bring drivers from countries which have a surplus or that we can train and bring. But this is also very difficult due to legislation to current legislation. In the example of Europe, we actually are working on this as well to try to. Because their professional qualifications are not recognized. While there are some countries would have similar standards. And we could try to find a framework where we recognize their professional qualifications, even could do specific training on those aspects that they are lacking. But then to bring them in more easily. And yeah, so we are monitoring the issue and trying to disseminate best practices to try to help the industry get more drivers. 

I think that's great. What do you think about autonomous trucks? I mean, do you think. Do you see it that in the near future. 

Well, it might help and already what we can say is that say digital advancements that are incorporated to the trucks are making or even also electric trucks are making the profession more attractive for young people. They feel that driving those trucks is more appealing. However, if we speak about specifically about autonomous driving and having driverless so full automation driverless trucks, this won't come in the short or medium term. So we cannot count on this. When we speak as well to companies, they don't see. They say we still need to focus to make the profession more attractive because they don't see this as a solution in a long time. And this will come at some point, but we still have time to have the legislation in place to allow those. 

Because of course this will start first in very small environments such as in the mining industry or where you have very short journeys of the truck or movements of the truck very controlled and this there we can see already some examples. But to have driverless trucks on highways and also on let's say urban areas, this will take very long time. 

Wow. I'm just impressed with this conversation and just how we mirror things so much in all of our countries for driving and for the industry. Natalia, thank you so much for being on this show. If somebody wants to find out more information about your organization, how do they connect with you? Where do they go to find you? 

Yeah, so they can go to our website ru.org and there they can find well the. The contacts and then my email as well. My personal email is Natalia Corchado as well. And yeah, so please reach out and yeah, in the platform as I'm in our website, as I mentioned, they will find studies and yeah, happy to. To answer anyone who's interested and wants to know more. Well thank you so much for having me today here. 

Thank you for being on the show. And we'll put your contact information in the show notes. And I, for one, cannot wait to read that study. I will be very excited when that comes out. So we hope you have a great rest of your day. I know it was difficult because you're it's night where you are, and we're in the morning here. So hopefully at some point we'll get to meet you over here in the United States. 

Yeah, I would love to. Thank you very much, Lindsey. 

Thank you.