FREIGHT
Aurora and Schneider | August 02, 2022
Aurora Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUR), a leading autonomous vehicle company, and Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE: SNDR), a premier multimodal provider of transportation services, announced a multiphase commercial pilot to haul freight for Schneider’s customers with the Aurora Driver, Aurora’s autonomous technology. This pilot reflects an important step for Schneider toward understanding how to incorporate autonomous trucks into its fleet to improve efficiencies and address the growing demand to move goods.
“Understanding more about an autonomous future is the logical next step to build a network that continues to deliver the best service for our customers,”
-Rob Reich, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer at Schneider.
Schneider hauls freight on over 9.3 million miles a day for America’s biggest companies, creating an attractive value proposition for autonomous trucks that can haul freight 24/7/365. The Aurora Driver will begin weekly autonomous hauls this week between Dallas and Houston with Aurora vehicle operators on board. Load frequency is expected to increase as Schneider expands its relationship with Aurora.
Working with Schneider will be instrumental as Aurora makes progress toward delivering Aurora Horizon, its subscription-based autonomous trucking product. The pilot will strengthen and prepare Aurora Horizon in three important areas ahead of its launch:
Autonomy at scale – The Aurora Driver learns from every load it hauls autonomously. As the scale of these pilots increases, so does the Aurora Driver’s experience.
Vehicle readiness – Weekly hauls allow Aurora to test the durability of its next-generation trucks, based on PACCAR’s Peterbilt 579M, for commercial operation and deployment.
Premium service – Aurora’s fourth commercial pilot enables one of the industry’s largest carriers to play a crucial role in testing and validating Aurora’s product and service.
“Schneider has a reputation for delivering consistent and reliable service, evidenced by the sheer number of Fortune 500 customers. Preparing Aurora Horizon for prime-time with Schneider springloads our ability to deploy our product at scale in the years to come,”
-Sterling Anderson, Aurora’s Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer.
About Aurora
Aurora (Nasdaq: AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling semi-trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora Horizon and Aurora Connect, its driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing. Aurora is partnered with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Toyota, FedEx, Volvo Trucks, PACCAR, Uber, Uber Freight, U.S. Xpress, Werner, Covenant, and Schneider. To learn more, visit www.aurora.tech.
About Schneider
Schneider is a premier multimodal provider of transportation, intermodal and logistics services. Offering one of the broadest portfolios in the industry, Schneider’s solutions include Regional and Long-Haul Truckload, Expedited, Dedicated, Bulk, Intermodal, Brokerage, Warehousing, Supply Chain Management, Port Logistics and Logistics Consulting.With $5.6 billion in annual revenue, Schneider has been safely delivering superior customer experiences and investing in innovation for over 85 years. The company’s digital marketplace, Schneider FreightPower®, is revolutionizing the industry giving shippers access to an expanded, highly flexible capacity network and provides carriers with unmatched access to quality drop-and-hook freight – Always Delivering, Always Ahead.
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MANAGEMENT
NMFTA | June 15, 2022
The National Motor Freight Traffic Association has announced an agreement to take over the administration and directorship of the Digital LTL Council.
The Digital LTL Council was formed in November 2020 by a diverse group of industry executives committed to the full digitalization of the LTL industry. In its new role, NMFTA will bring industry expertise, dedicated resources, marketing and legal support – in addition to the financial resources needed to accelerate the Council's work.
"The NMFTA is extremely pleased that the current members of the Digital LTL Council have voted overwhelmingly to accept our proposal to sponsor the Council, We look forward to bringing their vision to fruition."
-Paul Dugent, a board member and recent executive director of NMFTA.
According to Brian Thompson of Digital LTL Council member SMC3, the Council brings together carriers, logistics service providers, shippers and technology providers with the sole focus of developing a set of uniform standards that supports the scalable automation and digitalization of LTL shipment management. The Council released its first set of standards to support the electronic bill of lading in late 2021, and work continues with a focus on shipment visibility and freight exception handling.
Debbie Sparks, who recently took over as executive director of NMFTA, said the two organizations are an ideal fit for each other.
About NMFTA
Since 1956, the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc. (NMFTA) has represented the interests of the less-than-truckload (LTL) motor carrier industry. NMFTA is committed to helping LTL carriers meet the challenges confronting the transportation industry in the 21st century through research, education and the publication of specifications, rules, transportation codes and the preparation and dissemination of studies, reports and analyses. Membership in NMFTA is available to all for-hire interstate and intrastate motor carriers.
About the Digital LTL Council
The Digital LTL Council brings together carriers, logistics service providers, shippers and technology providers with the sole focus of developing a set of uniform standards that support the scalable automation and digitalization of LTL shipments.
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TRANSPORTATION
Aurora Innovation, Inc. | May 19, 2022
Aurora Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUR) and FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) announced the expansion of their pilot program to autonomously move FedEx shipments on an additional commercial lane in Texas.
In March 2022, Aurora's next-generation autonomous trucks – based on the new Peterbilt 579 – began to transport FedEx shipments between Aurora’s new terminals in Fort Worth and El Paso. Aurora is making the 600-mile trip on a weekly basis with safety drivers on board and expects to increase the frequency of trips in the coming months. Aurora continues to move shipments for FedEx between Aurora’s South Dallas terminal and its new Houston terminal on a daily basis.
Progress and momentum: FedEx and Aurora pilot snapshot
Since the commercial pilot began in September 2021, Aurora’s deliveries of FedEx shipments between Dallas and Houston have been 100% on time.
With each trip, the Aurora Driver (Aurora’s self-driving technology product) is providing thousands of FedEx customers with packages that were autonomously transported.
Aurora moves trailers for FedEx during various weather conditions and all hours of the day and night, optimizing fleet utilization.
Aurora completed daily hauls during the 2021 peak Holiday season, the busiest time of year for FedEx.
To date, the companies have completed 60,000 miles with zero safety incidents.
Aurora’s performance throughout this pilot demonstrates the value proposition autonomous trucking offers for transportation and logistics providers as the company works toward the commercial launch of its autonomous trucks. In light of the headwinds facing the logistics industry – ranging from increasing demand for the quick transportation of shipments to a challenging labor market – the Aurora Driver, when integrated into existing linehaul operations, has potential to provide a reliable, efficient linehaul solution to help address such industry concerns.
Innovation is in our DNA – our culture drives us to think radically and differently, finding new ways to use technology to enhance safety, improve our operations, empower our team members and help our customers succeed,” said Rebecca Yeung, Corporate Vice President, Operations Science & Advanced Technology, FedEx Corporation. Aurora has been a like-minded collaborator, helping us learn from and grow our autonomous trucking solutions. We look forward to our continued work together as we test further integration of autonomous technology into our operations to build a collaborative, robust network of solutions to respond to growing customer demand.
“Some time ago, I was asked why the general public should care about autonomous trucking. This is why. In six months of working with FedEx, we’ve safely, reliably, and efficiently transported packages for tens of thousands of FedEx customers, This lane expansion came ahead of schedule and we’re delighted to continue building the future of trucking with one of the country’s biggest and most important transportation companies.”
-Sterling Anderson, Aurora Co-founder and Chief Product Officer.
FedEx Corporation’s Rebecca Yeung and Aurora’s Sterling Anderson will also be speaking about how autonomous trucks can transform logistics and the movement of goods later today at TechCrunch Mobility Summit.
About Aurora
Aurora (Nasdaq: AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling semi-trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora Horizon and Aurora Connect, its driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing. Aurora is partnered with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Toyota, FedEx, Volvo Trucks, PACCAR, Uber, Uber Freight, U.S. Xpress, Werner, and Covenant. To learn more, visit www.aurora.tech.
About FedEx
FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services. With annual revenue of $92 billion, the company offers integrated business solutions through operating companies competing collectively, operating collaboratively and innovating digitally under the respected FedEx brand. Consistently ranked among the world’s most admired and trusted employers, FedEx inspires its nearly 600,000 team members to remain focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities. FedEx is committed to connecting people and possibilities around the world responsibly and resourcefully, with a goal to achieve carbon-neutral operations by 2040. To learn more, please visit about.fedex.com.
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