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Werner Enterprises has partnered with driverless trucking know-how firm Kodiak Robotics to ascertain an autonomous trucking lane, the businesses introduced Sept. 29.
The Autonomous Trucking Lane will likely be used to point out how successfully autonomous vans can be utilized with a switch hub mannequin at truck ports.
The partnership started the earlier month with a week-long pilot program that includes eight distinctive journeys between Dallas and Lake Metropolis, Florida.
“Werner Enterprises is likely one of the nation’s largest transportation and logistics suppliers and we’re working with them to ascertain an autonomous trucking route,” stated Kodiak CEO Don Burnette. “A part of that collaboration was doing a week-long pilot undertaking, which featured 24/7 operations. That is one thing we actually talked about within the autonomous area.
We’re thrilled to announce our collaboration and up to date pilot with @One_Werner, one of many largest transportation and logistics suppliers within the nation. Collectively we’ll work to ascertain an autonomous trucking route and showcase the switch hub mannequin!
Learn extra https://t.co/qZaVcgPcEV pic.twitter.com/cNIzttUrg8— Kodiak Robotics (@KodiakRobotics) September 29, 2022
Werner had trailers able to be picked up by a self-driving Kodiak truck at each ends of the journey. Its native drivers carried out first-mile pickups and last-mile deliveries as soon as the self-driving truck delivered cargo to switch hubs. Kodiak stated it accomplished 152 hours of driving and achieved 100% on-time supply efficiency.
“It was to essentially take a look at the 24/7 side of what is doable with a self-driving driver,” Burnette stated. “And what we need to do now, and what we’re engaged on with them, is discover a pathway that we will operationalize on a day-to-day foundation for a long-term undertaking.”
Burnette famous that the pilot additionally aimed to point out simply how efficient the switch hub mannequin will be. The method entails the self-driving vans arriving at a staging space the place a driver would take management to reposition the tractor onto a trailer. The truck would then be moved to a departure space the place the driving force would exit earlier than the truck continued to its vacation spot.
“One of many issues that excites us essentially the most is that 94% of the miles pushed had been efficiently accomplished in autonomous mode,” Burnette stated. “And we predict for a primary driver with them, the primary time they’ve labored with them, that is a really excessive proportion.”
The Kodiak Associate Deployment Program was created to assist carriers set up autonomous freight operations and seamlessly combine driverless know-how into their fleet. US Xpress grew to become the primary truckload associate within the April 7 program. Its self-contained route related the Dallas-Fort Price space of Texas and Atlanta. Werner is now the brand new program associate.
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“Working with Kodiak permits us to successfully combine new applied sciences into our enterprise whereas giving us a aggressive benefit,” stated Chad Dittberner, senior vp of van and accelerated at Werner. “We sit up for establishing the continuing hybrid mannequin of autonomous drivers and lanes to create unprecedented new ranges of effectivity whereas remaining targeted on Werner’s worth of placing security first.”
Burnette famous that the brand new partnership is an evolution of what the event program has been capable of accomplish to this point. The latest week-long pilot was essentially the most thus far with 7,957 miles flown throughout the eight expenses.
“What I actually need to level out is that the autonomy system ran for 152 hours straight,” Burnette stated. “After all, we now have a security driver behind the wheel, and we change that security driver and, in fact, meet all of the hours of service necessities that drivers should meet. However the system itself labored all this time. And the truck solely stopped to refuel, to drop off hundreds, to choose up hundreds. And that is actually why it is so necessary, it is the tallest, longest, most succesful driver of its sort we have made thus far.
Kodiak’s driverless know-how was primarily designed across the freeway parts of long-haul routes. Its modular {hardware} strategy integrates sensors right into a streamlined construction of sensor modules to optimize monitoring, scalability and maintainability.
“We’re constructing a nationwide self-sustaining freight community, and a part of what excites us essentially the most is Kodiak’s capacity to quickly broaden that community,” Burnette stated. “Quicker than our opponents can, utilizing what we name sparse mapping know-how. It’s an unique and revolutionary mapping system that we now have developed from scratch in-house, which is actually driving the trade ahead. »
Werner ranks No. 17 on the Transport Subjects Prime 100 Largest For-Rent Carriers in North America and No. 33 on the TT Prime 50 Record of Largest Logistics Firms.
