Today marks an important milestone for Volvo Autonomous Solutions (VAS), the autonomous trucking arm of Volvo Trucks North America, as it begins to autonomously transport real-world freight for real-world customers.

It will do so in Texas, for DHL Supply Chain, initially hauling a single load a week autonomously as the companies collect performance data and evaluate operations with a safety driver onboard.

“This is a huge milestone for us,” Sasko Cuklev, head of on-road solutions with VAS, said in an interview with TruckNews.com. “It marks the main target we had for this year, and that is to start to operate autonomously with a safety driver.”

It’s no accident that DHL was selected as the first fleet to integrate the VAS new VNL equipped with the Aurora Driver into its fleet operations.

“We have been working tightly together for quite some time,” Cuklev said. “We have been vocal early on that this is not only about the autonomous functionality, but we need to have a broader ecosystem in place to make this work.”

VAS has been working alongside DHL in Texas, delivering loads using traditional trucks operated by human drivers, all to learn as much as possible about the duty cycle and route.

“And now we have come to the next step, where we have started to introduce autonomous drives as well,” Cuklev explained.

Jason Gillespie is senior director of continuous improvement and innovation with DHL, which serves as an agent for its customers’ freight. As such, it carefully selected partners that were willing and interested to be among the first to run autonomous deliveries.

“It’s very critical that we found forward-thinking partners with our shippers, who were willing to partner in this,” he told TruckNews.com. “We currently have two of our clients that are involved today in the initial launch and more to come.”

Automating longhaul

Loads will be picked up at customer sites by traditional trucks and then taken to autonomous terminals operated by VAS. From there, the freight will be delivered autonomously to another VAS-run autonomous trucking terminal before being delivered to its final destination, once again using traditional human-driven trucks. Essentially, the start and end legs of the deliveries will be managed by humans with the longer distance in between transported autonomously.

Unlike other players in the autonomous trucking space, VAS has the benefit of adding the Aurora self-driving technology to the trucks as they are produced on the assembly line in Volvo’s New River Valley truck plant in Virginia. This, said Cuklev, will enable the company to ramp up production and bring scale to the segment faster than others may be able to.

“That was really critical for us,” DHL’s Gillespie said of the factory installation. “We have seen in the autonomous vehicle space where some of the companies have tried to retrofit. We saw that [VAS] had a plan to make to make the vehicle fit for purpose. I think they have a really good plan around that, that we have confidence in.”

Communication with drivers

DHL isn’t new to automation. It has deployed autonomous technologies in its warehouses and yards. “We’re a big believer in it, and making sure that it’s helping the humans and not displacing the humans,” Gillespie explained.

Asked if drivers are anxious about the rollout of self-driving trucks, he said “Yes, and it’s something we’re very mindful of. I think a lot of it is making sure they realize that we are not here to take anything away from them…The freight we’re going after is that long-distance, cross-country type of freight.”

He said drivers want to be home more frequently and autonomous deliveries will help enable that, ultimately improving their lifestyles.

Texas has been chosen for early autonomous trucking pilots, because the regulatory framework is welcoming, and weather conditions are ideal. But Cuklev believes the technology will eventually work just as well in Canada and other areas where weather is less predictable.

“I believe in the evolution of the technology,” he stressed.

Cuklev wouldn’t speculate on when the safety driver will be removed from the cab, emphasizing safety won’t be jeopardized in a race to become truly driverless. But Gillespie said he’s been impressed with everything he’s seen so far from VAS and the Aurora Driver.

“Everything I’ve seen from the autonomous driver is that it’s the most cautious, and most correctly assertive [driver]. You have to be assertive to drive and what I’ve liked is the balance; it’s making cautious decisions but not just pulling off to the side when it sees a problem, because you need it to be able to make decisions,” Gillespie said of the Aurora Driver.

Asked what benefits of autonomous deliveries most excite him, Gillespie said it’s being a part of the journey to safely remove the driver from the cab. Benefits will range from improved efficiency (“we’re not idling and having to sit at a rest stop with the engine running to keep someone warm”) to the opportunity to streamline deliveries (“we might be removing time out of transit for some of these really long hauls, so there’s a benefit to our customers.”)

As VAS edges closer to commercialization, it will first roll out its autonomous trucks under a Trucking-as-a-Service model, playing an active role in the setup and oversight of the technology.

“We are the one-stop-shop,” Cuklev said. “We take full responsibility and set everything up. To start with, we believe that is the right model.”

Longer term, however, Cuklev said Volvo is still considering alternative models through which to deploy its autonomous trucks.

“We are extremely humble and want to listen to what our customers want,” he said.