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By Reuters
The US Postal Service began Tuesday a two-week test to transport mail in three southwestern states using stand-alone trucks, a step forward in the commercialization of autonomous vehicle technology for transportation freight.
San Diego-based start-up TuSimple said its self-driving trucks would start shipping mail between USPS facilities in Phoenix and Dallas to see how emerging technology could improve delivery times and costs. A safety driver will sit behind the wheel to intervene if necessary and an engineer will put himself in the passenger's seat.
If successful, this would be a success for the autonomous driving industry and a possible solution to the driver shortage and regulatory constraints faced by freight carriers across the country.
The pilot program includes five round trips, each totaling more than 3,100 km (3,300 km), or approximately 45 hours of driving. It is unclear whether automatic mail delivery will continue after the two pilot weeks.
"Working with TuSimple is our first initiative in autonomous long-distance transportation," said USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum. "We are conducting research and testing as part of our efforts to operate a future class of vehicles incorporating new technologies."
TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said that no dollar amount had been used and that the agency depended on revenues from the sale of the program. postage and other products. TuSimple raised $ 178 million in private financing, including chip maker Nvidia Corp and Chinese online media company Sina Corp.
Trucks will travel on major highways and cross Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
"We think that using stand-alone trucks will really be a good deal," said Chuck Price, TuSimple product manager. "These long journeys go beyond the reach of a single human driver, which means that today, if they do, they have to find a way to cover it with multiple drivers in the vehicle."
The goal is to eliminate the need for a driver, freeing shippers and freight carriers from the constraints of increasing driver shortages. The US trucking associations estimate that it will miss 174,500 drivers by 2024, due to the aging workforce and the difficulty of attracting young drivers.
A new safety law requiring road drivers to register their miles electronically has also limited the speed and efficiency of vehicle fleets.
The merger of TuSimple with the USPS marks a feat for the emerging industry of autonomous heavyweights and follows the entry of the Swedish company Einride in the delivery of goods with the help of electric trucks without a driver on a public road, announced last week.
These developments contrast with the productivity-reducing efforts of companies such as General Cruise Cruise, Uber Technologies Inc. and General Motors' Drive.ai start-up, which have stumbled upon the construction of autonomous cars capable of anticipating and to react to humans difficult technological feat.
According to Price, autonomous trucks have advantages over passenger cars, including the relative ease of driving on motorways compared to city centers, reducing the need for mapping and safety issues facing pedestrians and passengers. cyclists.
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