Kodiak Robotics, a self-driving trucking company, announced a dedicated agreement with Forward Air Corporation, an asset-light provider of transportation services across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Through this agreement, Kodiak and Forward are operating autonomous freight service 24 hours per day, six days per week (24/6) between Dallas and Atlanta, making three round trips weekly.
Kodiak’s ability to operate consistent 24-hour service across the nearly 800 mile freight lane between Dallas and Atlanta is largely attributable to the reliability and ruggedness of Kodiak’s autonomous system and the unique flexibility and speed of its sparse mapping solution. This proprietary mapping approach speeds the process of introducing new autonomous lanes, and it enables Kodiak to issue real-time, fleet-wide mapping updates over-the-air.
Tom Schmitt, Chairman, President and CEO of Forward said, “To serve our customers, we always need to be on the forefront of exploring emerging technologies. Kodiak has earned an outstanding reputation in safe autonomous trucking, and this collaboration allows us to explore potential benefits to our business. While we don’t see autonomous trucks replacing independent contractor capacity, this could potentially be a scalable solution for certain lanes in our network.”
“We are proving out our business model by moving time-sensitive freight across thousands of miles and multiple hours of service through our collaboration with Forward,” said Don Burnette, Founder and CEO, Kodiak.
“The tweener lane between Dallas and Atlanta is long and difficult to staff, so it perfectly illustrates how autonomous trucks can make the supply chain more efficient and resilient and supplement our customers’ human driven fleets. At the same time, we are showcasing the reliability and ruggedness of our autonomous system, which is able to operate for six days straight without needing rest or recalibration, a significant achievement.”
