Dive Brief:
- McLane Company has partnered with Aurora Innovation, a self-driving technology company, to expand driverless truck transport in Texas, the companies announced on Wednesday.
- The partnership began with a pilot in 2023. Since then, Aurora Driver, Aurora’s autonomous system, has logged more than 280,000 autonomous miles and delivered 1,400 loads for McLane, according to the press release.
- Autonomous trucks are approved for the roughly 240-mile route between Dallas and Houston, and McLane plans to add routes to other distribution centers in the Sun Belt by the end of the year. The rollout is focused on restaurants right now, but is expected to expand to other businesses in the future.
Dive Insight:
Automated long-haul trucking routes would help McLane better weather driver shortages and turnover, helping maintain a consistent experience for the businesses they’re supplying. The automated vehicles handle the “middle mile” stretch between business destinations while McLane’s drivers handle local deliveries to customers.
“Autonomous technology helps us drive greater efficiency across the supply chain, while our drivers remain focused on the critical last mile—and continuing to serve as the face of our company to customers,” said Susan Adzick, president of McLane Restaurant.
McLane has more than 80 distribution centers across the U.S., but regulations governing driverless trucks vary from state to state, which may limit how many of those sites McLane can connect to its automated network.
The trucks use Aurora’s Driver system, which is rated as a level 4 system on SAE International’s automation scale. Level 4 means the vehicle can operate without a driver under limited conditions. By comparison, a system with level 3 automation needs a driver to take over at the system’s request, while level 5 can operate without a driver in any conditions.
