Ahead Air Begins Autonomous Trucking Service Between Dallas and Atlanta – Fleet Administration

Ahead Air Corp. and Kodiak Robotic introduced they are going to function autonomous freight service 24 hours per day, six days per week between a virtually 800-mile freight lane between Dallas and Atlanta, making three spherical journeys weekly.

Offering constant, 24/6 service creates important operational and technical complexities. To be able to keep the demanding schedule and abide by the hours-of-service rules, Kodiak’s self-driving truck operates with a security driver workforce overseeing the autonomous system.

“The tweener lane between Dallas and Atlanta is lengthy and troublesome to employees, so it completely illustrates how autonomous vehicles could make the availability chain extra environment friendly and resilient and complement our prospects’ human pushed fleets,” Kodiak Founder and CEO Don Burnette mentioned. “On the similar time, we’re showcasing the reliability and ruggedness of our autonomous system, which is ready to function for six days straight while not having relaxation or recalibration—a big achievement.”

Kodiak’s proprietary mapping strategy speeds the method of introducing new autonomous lanes, and it permits Kodiak to concern real-time, fleet-wide mapping updates over-the-air. So far, Kodiak has delivered greater than 100 hundreds and pushed greater than 100,000 miles because it started working with Ahead in August 2022.

“To serve our prospects, we at all times should be on the forefront of exploring rising applied sciences,” mentioned Tom Schmitt, chairman, president and CEO of Ahead. “Kodiak has earned an excellent status in protected autonomous trucking, and this collaboration permits us to discover potential advantages to our enterprise. Whereas we don’t see autonomous vehicles changing unbiased contractor capability, this might probably be a scalable answer for sure lanes in our community.”

Kodiak’s settlement with Ahead is the newest in a rising sequence of fleet and service relationships the corporate has introduced. Beforehand, the corporate introduced partnerships with IKEA, Werner Enterprises, U.S. Xpress, 10 Roads Categorical and CEVA Logistics.