The Sunbelt continues to be ground zero for autonomous and driverless trucking technologies
Global shipping giant A.P. Moller - Maersk and autonomous trucking tech startup Kodiak Robotics on Thursday confirmed the two companies have launched the first commercial autonomous trucking lane between Houston and Oklahoma City – an expansion of the collaboration between to two companies that began nearly a year ago.
"In total, we have hauled over 50 loads with Maersk. We kicked off our partnership with initial pilot deliveries in November 2022," Michael Wiesinger, Kodiak Robotics vice president of commercialization told CCJ Thursday. "We subsequently worked to further understand Maersk’s network, operations, and long-term strategy, and in August introduced sustained commercial operations on a lane that is strategically important for Maersk.”
Kodiak has been delivering eight loads per week between Texas and Oklahoma, with a safety driver behind the wheel, for Maersk customers since August.
[Related: AVs will augment drivers, not replace them]
“Autonomous trucks will play an instrumental role in digitizing the supply chain," said Erez Agmoni, Maersk’s global head of innovation - logistics & services. "We expect self-driving trucks to ultimately become a competitive advantage for Maersk as we execute on our strategy to provide customers with a sustainable, end-to-end logistics solution across air, land and sea.”
Kodiak and Maersk are completing four round trips per week on a 24-hour-a-day, four-day-a-week basis between a Houston facility, where consumer products are loaded onto 53-foot trailers, to a distribution center in Oklahoma City. Operational learnings gained from the activity are captured and documented as part of the Kodiak Partner Deployment Program, which is designed to help companies learn how Kodiak’s self-driving trucks can become an integral part of their overall logistics strategy and offerings.
Autonomous trucking solutions have the potential to address long-term challenges faced by the trucking industry. According to the American Trucking Association, the trucking industry faces a shortage of roughly 78,000 drivers. The ATA estimates that, based on current driver demographic trends, as well as projected growth in freight demand, the shortage could swell to more than 160,000 over the next decade.
Each Kodiak vehicle is equipped with 18 different sensors, including cameras, radar, and lidar, that provide the platform with a 360-degree view around the truck. Every tenth of a second, the truck evaluates the performance of more than 1,000 safety-critical processes and components in both the self-driving stack and the underlying truck platform. The trucks learn in parallel, with system upgrades shared to the entire fleet simultaneously, and are not subject to environmental distractions.
Pilot Flying J and Kodiak in August opened their first truckport at the Pilot Travel Center in Villa Rica, Georgia. The facility, located roughly 30 miles west of Atlanta, will be used by Kodiak to launch and land autonomous trucks and will serve as a hub for drivers to pick up and drop off first- and last-mile deliveries. The facilities will also offer services like refueling, light maintenance, pre-trip inspections and Enhanced Inspections specifically designed for self-driving trucks – a program that was piloted in Texas and requires that a CVSA-certified inspector, who has completed a 40-hour CVSA training course and passed a corresponding exam, conduct a thorough inspection of an autonomous truck combination, which is valid for a 24-hour period.
