Scania to put autonomous truck carrying commercial goods on public roads for testing
We need to learn about autonomous operations now so that we are ready as soon as the technology is ready. We believe this pilot will be a hugely important stepping stone,” said Robert Melin Mori, the Scania project manager in charge of this initiative.
Scania, together with HAVI Supply Chain, managed to put autonomous truck carrying commercial goods on public roads for pilot tests in Sweden. The pilot, carried out under regular traffic conditions, aims to learn about the effectiveness of autonomous truck transport as part of hub-to-hub operations. According to what Scania stated, the pilot will see the autonomous truck drive between Södertälje and Jönköping, a three-hour journey of around 300 km, and the route forms part of a longer logistics flow for HAVI, with the first and last mile being handled by manually driven vehicles.
Indeed, the TRATON Group, to which Scania belongs, is pushing hard the development of autonomous trucks, also to tackle the issue of drivers shortage that will show its urgency in the next few years. Scania and HAVI rely on quite a strong track record of cooperation in several initiatives around electrified transport.
Scania’s efforts in view of autonomous truck development
“We know the transport system will change in the coming years and that the industry faces challenges of driver shortages and diminishing margins, so the transformation process towards autonomous technology needs to start happening right away. We need to learn about autonomous operations now so that we are ready as soon as the technology is ready. We believe this pilot will be a hugely important stepping stone,” said Robert Melin Mori, the Scania project manager in charge of this initiative.
“This is an autonomous transport solution being used under real operating conditions with commercial goods for a third party. No one has done that before in Europe. We are delighted to be working with HAVI on this pilot,” adds Peter Hafmar, Head of Autonomous Solutions at Scania.
“We have built up a strong understanding through the initiatives we’ve already undertaken together, and we are very happy to be in partnership on this latest pilot, which we believe holds enormous promise for our future relationship and for the future of the supply chain industry as a whole,” says Massimo D’Alessandro, Director of Sustainability & Innovation at HAVI.
