Why autonomous transport is as much about people as it is about technology
28 JANUARY 2026
Hub-to-hub product manager and all-round ‘people person’ Daniel Blank tells us why autonomous transport will have such a beneficial impact on our daily lives.
We talk a lot about the amazing technology behind autonomous vehicles, and rightly so. But the people aspect of it is equally profound, as Daniel Blank is keen to emphasise.
“This technology will help us to make a big change to the world of transport, and the thing I'm most proud of is that’s not only for the environment at large; it’s also for human beings,” he says.
Originally from Germany and with a background at Scania’s sister company MAN, Daniel joined the Scania Autonomous transport team just when it was officially being launched in 2019. Nowadays, he’s a Product Manager within the hub-to-hub workstream at TRATON Group R&D, and proudly leads his 90-strong, multinational team as they define, design and develop the whole on-road product line-up.
For Daniel, autonomous transport is about connecting teams, aligning priorities and keeping the end user in focus throughout development.
“Our goal is to develop these hub-to-hub products that can run from a logistics hub, mainly via motorways but also some connecting roads, to another logistics hub,” he explains.
“It’s a completely new product and we don’t know everything yet, so we’re in close collaboration with customers to understand their needs and translate them into technical solutions. And then we discuss with our wider teams and technical experts how we can make those technical concepts into products.
“So, for me it’s a lot of coordination with the team, making decisions about which way to go, making sure that we have everything in place. It’s a wide-ranging and very interesting role.”
Key milestones for the autonomous team
During his six years at Autonomous Solutions, Daniel has experienced several key milestones, not least the personal satisfaction of seeing an initial eight-strong team grow to become 90. He also mentions technical highlights, including the Red Bull event, where he also played a key supporting role.
Close collaboration across disciplines is central to the autonomous programme, ensuring solutions work for both technology and the people who interact with it.
“We’ve had a number of technical and product-specific milestones and the Red Bull challenge showed it in a very condensed way. It starts in the beginning where we have Plus AI as partner, you start to bring these technical components together and for the first time make them run; it’s a milestone to make that happen,” he says.
“The work that the team did on the challenge was amazing. Seeing everyone focusing on a delivery in such a short time frame and pulling it off is something that makes me immensely proud.
“And then, more generally, when an autonomous truck runs on the highway for the first time, does lane changes by itself and does on-ramp, off-ramp or intersections by itself, these are milestones that our team feels proud of; we can see this is a product that will be able to run totally without the driver on a public road because it can see other vehicles and other road users and can act on it.”
Autonomous can help people too
Even when Daniel is discussing technical details with his trademark friendly authority, the human aspect is never far from his thoughts. He is quick to explain the benefits which autonomous will bring to people, too.
Autonomous development involves constant learning and iteration, balancing technical progress with practical considerations in everyday operations.
“We will still need drivers in the future as well. They can work locally, they can go home to their families in the evening and they can sleep in their own bed. We already see that we have a lack of drivers, so let’s use these skilled people in the right place and don’t make them go weeks at a time away from their families.
“Then, by making autonomous transport possible, we are not tied to driving 15 hours any longer, so it doesn’t really matter if your transport takes exactly nine hours or it takes nine hours and 20 minutes. That gives us the possibility to say we drive five kilometres slower with less energy consumption independently, whether it’s a combustion engine or a battery-electric engine.
“Autonomous can make transport — and people’s lives — safer and more sustainable, and make the world a little bit better.”
Haven’t seen the challenge that Scania created together with Red Bull yet?
Watch it in the three short clips below, and let Daniel Frylmark, Solutions Manager at TRATON Group R&D, walk you through how it was made possible with the highest precision and safety.