On Wednesday, driverless truck company Aurora Innovation, Inc. announced the opening of the company’s first commercial trucking lane.
Aurora says that the newly opened lane is located along I-45 between Dallas and Houston, Texas. The company is currently hauling more than 75 loads per week and is operating day and night for pilot customers. While not currently fully autonomous, the newly launched lane will go driverless by late 2024, Aurora says.
Aurora recently opened terminals in South Dallas and in Houston to support the new commercial lane. The company says that the Houston terminal is strategically located near a logistics hub supporting pilot customers, including FedEx and others.
To support the driverless operations, Aurora is at work implementing a “Command Center” which “includes a team of remote specialists who monitor and provide guidance to the active fleet of Aurora-powered trucks, and dispatchers who allocate trucks, trailers, and vehicle operators to missions.”
“Opening a driverless trucking lane flanked by commercially-ready terminals is an industry-first that unlocks our ability to launch our driverless trucking product,” said Sterling Anderson, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Aurora. “With this corridor’s launch, we’ve defined, refined, and validated the framework for the expansion of our network with the largest partner ecosystem in the autonomous trucking industry.”
Aurora says that opening the Dallas to Houston lane is part of a larger autonomous trucking launch planned for 2024.
“Bringing our commercial-ready terminals and services online a year ahead of our planned commercial driverless launch between Dallas and Houston enables us to focus next year on integrating our Driver-ready trucks into our customers’ operations,” added Anderson.