Transurban has partnered with autonomous driving software company Plus to advance its automated freight program.
The partnership between Transurban and Plus will leverage Plus’s self-driving software and commercial deployment experience, including its work with commercial vehicle manufacturer IVECO to co-develop self-driving trucks for Europe. Highly automated trucks enabled by Plus’s technology are already delivering freight in the US for world-class fleets and are being tested on public roads in Germany with IVECO.
Plus’s self-driving software uses generative AI, machine learning, computer vision and other algorithms to empower vehicles with superhuman awareness and control. Integrated with advanced lidar, radar and camera sensors, Plus’s software can detect and precisely track objects, predict their movement and then safely maneuver the vehicle.
The partnership will build on the company’s first self-driving truck trial on Melbourne’s CityLink and the Monash Freeway in 2022, to explore how Plus’s Level 4 autonomous driving technology, combined with smart road infrastructure, could help make trucking safer, more efficient and more sustainable in Australia.
Starting in 2017, the company’s connected and autonomous testing program has worked with governments and industry to roll out 11 trials of fully and partially automated vehicles on motorways across Australia and North America to test how they respond to road infrastructure. Transurban’s successful 2022 trial was reportedly the first time in Australia that a highly automated self-driving truck was tested in live traffic conditions on public motorways.
Scott Charlton, CEO of Transurban, says “This partnership will support long-term opportunities for automated freight, including potential benefits to reduce congestion and improve road safety and traffic flow, and is a continuation of Transurban’s work in this area. Automated transportation technologies are going to transform the way we move goods around cities, and with vital connections between ports and other freight hubs, our roads offer ideal conditions to facilitate this new technology.”
To keep up with the latest DPDgroup/Geopost developments from the parcel and postal technology industry, click here