A California-based autonomous trucking company will begin a Dallas route in partnership with century-old business equipment firm Pitney Bowes.
Gatik, which operates a hub in Fort Worth, Texas, signed a multi-year agreement with the Connecticut-based company known for its postage meters and other mailing equipment and services. Gatik wouldn’t disclose the routes it’ll travel for Pitney Bowes, but it recently began operating autonomous 26-foot box trucks to 34 Sam’s Club locations in Dallas-Fort Worth.
The company’s medium-duty self-driving box trucks will work in an operational loop across Pitney Bowes’ ecommerce logistics network in Dallas, making multiple deliveries a day beginning early next year. The goal is to speed deliveries and drive down transportation costs.
“Our partnership with Pitney Bowes reinforces the intense demand we are seeing for autonomous trucks that can operate within urban and semi-urban environments,” said Gatik CEO and co-founder Gautam Narang in a statement. “We’re excited to help Pitney Bowes accelerate the transformation of (its) supply chain.”
Initial runs will employ a safety operator in the vehicles to monitor the technology’s performance. Data collected from each delivery will be used to improve network design and identify additional cost savings and service improvements as Pitney Bowes eyes expansion across its national ecommerce logistics network. Pitney Bowes provides services to more than 90% of the Fortune 500 companies.
Sam Saad, vice president of strategic initiatives at Gatik, said the company is delivering on its promise of 500 new jobs by 2025 in Dallas-Fort Worth. He said the company is on track with the goal it set last August.
“This is really a densification of Gatik’s presence in the Dallas market, which is in line with our roadmap to essentially expand quite aggressively,” Saad said.
Texas is a key state for self-driving truck experimentation. In April, California-based self-driving trucking company Kodiak Robotics Inc. partnered with carrier fleet U.S. Xpress to launch an autonomously operated cargo service between Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta. TuSimple and Waymo are also conducting tests in the Dallas area.
