Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation, a self-driving truck company, recently announced it significantly expanded its commercial operations in June.
“Efficiency, uptime, and reliability are important for our customers, and Aurora is showing we can deliver,” Chris Urmson, Aurora co-founder and CEO, said. “Just three months after launch, we’re running driverless operations day and night and we’ve expanded our terminal network to Phoenix. Our rapid progress is beginning to unlock the full value of self-driving trucks for our customers, which has the potential to transform the trillion-dollar trucking industry.”
The company surpassed 20,000 driverless miles with a fleet of three trucks and opened a new terminal in Phoenix. The Fort Worth to Phoenix freight corridor takes more than 15 hours to complete.
The company’s driverless operations on the Dallas-to-Houston lane now include nighttime driving. The additional hours allow for shorter delivery times on long-haul routes. Long routes can exceed the 11-hour driving limit for human drivers, and self-driving trucks can halve these transit times.
Thirty-seven percent of fatal crashes involving large trucks occur at night as a consequence of driver fatigue and low visibility.
The Aurora Driver, a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, launched. It can detect objects in the dark more than 1,475 feet away and can identify pedestrians, vehicles, and debris up to 11-seconds sooner than a traditional driver.