American autonomous logistics company Gatik joined hands with Canadian food and pharmacy retailer Loblaw to announce the launch of its full driverless grocery delivery truck.
Currently, around 6 self-driving grocery delivery trucks are making rounds on the roads of Ontario. Unlike before, these trucks have no safety drivers.
The road to true self-driving vehicles with no human sitting inside to control it has been a long one, and Gatik has been through various phases to achieve it. The pilot programme launched in January 2020 by Gatik witnessed a fleet of autonomous trucks around the Greater Toronto Area. The vehicles were ferrying items between Loblaws distribution hubs and half a dozen retail locations.
However, a safety driver had been seated inside every vehicle and was tasked to take the reins of the car in case of an emergency. This programme resulted in more than 1,50,000 trips being made across the set location in the quiet of the pandemic. With zero abnormality or accidents, both Gatik and Loblaw decided to take the next step.
They decided to go full driverless after receiving approval from the province. However, the companies are still planning to keep a safety driver in the vehicle for now and will only remove them if everything goes according to their plan.
“We’ve demonstrated autonomous driving technology that enables supply chain efficiency, moving more orders more frequently for our customers,” said David Markwell, Chief Technology and Analytics Officer, Loblaw Companies Limited.
Gautam Narang, CEO and co-founder, Gatik, said, “Canada is the latest market in which we’ve launched our fully driverless service, further validating that the tangible benefits of autonomous delivery are being realized first in B2B short-haul logistics.”
What is middle-mile logistics?
Middle-mile logistics can be understood by the term middlemen. It picks a certain product from point A and delivers it to the point before the last. This entire procedure is then followed by last-mile logistics which picks up the product and delivers it to the endpoint.
Gatik has been focusing on middle-mile logistics with its autonomous fleet. Gatik focuses exclusively on facilitating frequent, point-to-point deliveries across the middle mile to maximize safety, using proprietary, commercial-grade autonomous technology that is purpose-built for B2B short-haul logistics.
The refrigerated trucks operate for about 12 hours a day and pick up grocery orders from a Loblaw distribution facility before arriving at nearby retail locations in the GTA on fixed, repetitive, predictable routes.
With the removal of the safety driver, the companies believe they are able to unlock the “true advantages of autonomous delivery.”
Autonomous delivery enables Loblaw to operate more routes and make more frequent trips, establishing a supply chain that is safer, more sustainable and more resilient. As for scaling up the project, Loblaw says there is no specific timeline but they will continue to review results and look to see where else the technology might make sense.
