Loblaw begins driverless grocery deliveries
Loblaw Companies is working with autonomous delivery tech company Gatik to deliver grocery orders without a driver.
A fleet of multi-temperature autonomous box trucks is delivering select online grocery orders for Loblaw’s PC Express service. More than 150,000 autonomous deliveries have been made by Loblaw and Gatik since January 2020 with a safety driver on-board without incident.
Today, fully autonomous deployments will commence, Loblaw announced in a press release. This marks the first time an autonomous trucking company has removed the safety driver for a daily delivery route in Canada.
An extensive third-party safety review was completed before the driverless deliveries began, Loblaw said.
“Working with Gatik, we’ve demonstrated that autonomous driving technology enables supply chain efficiency, moving more orders more frequently for our customers,” said David Markwell, chief technology and analytics officer, Loblaw Companies Limited. “Being the first in Canada with this technology and deploying a fully driverless solution is exciting and illustrates our commitment to making grocery shopping better for customers.”
“This milestone marks the expansion of Gatik’s autonomous delivery service to Loblaw’s customers across multiple sites,” added Gautam Narang, CEO and co-founder, Gatik. “Canada is the latest market in which we’ve launched our fully driverless service, further validating that the tangible benefits of autonomous delivery are being realized first in B2B shorthaul logistics. It’s a privilege to achieve this commercial and technical landmark with Canada’s largest retailer.”
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I am concerned about safety of these units. If driverless trucks are safe we will not need to import more drivers
I can see mini buses under 26 people on certain roads doing the same
I do not yet see proper infrastructure in place. Less drivers will help with the housing shortage but a tax of $20hr o. Time spent with these units in certain parts of the GTA would be a great idea to help upgrade the roads and prevent overcrowding of the street
This is an amazing and how these vehicles will be insured.
I am all for technology but at what point does a large company maintain an employment level that is socially responsible. They should employ drivers and keep people working. It is the socially responsible thing to do. I am sure the Weston family and the shareholders are rich enough.