Pioneer or ‘guinea pig?’ Central Texas highway testing tech for driverless trucks

  

AUSTIN (KXAN) – There’s a decent chance you’ve traveled next to a self-driving 18-wheeler on a Texas interstate.

The reason you may not have noticed, said Mike Arellano, is because they travel with backup drivers sitting in the seats — not controlling the wheel but ready to take over in case of a problem. Arellano is the Austin deputy district engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation and is helping lead the charge to keep up with — and enhance — the technology used in vehicles on Texas roads.

TxDOT is rolling out a “smart freight corridor” on a 21-mile stretch of State Highway 130 from Georgetown to Del Valle, Arellano explained.

The focus of the project, announced in November 2023, is to install technology along the highway that self-driving vehicles can access to travel more safely. Sensors, cameras and other equipment mounted on poles spaced roughly 650 feet apart will provide real-time notifications about road conditions.

“That’s kind of like the last frontier,” he said. “So, they (self-driving 18-wheelers) can have information about wrecks, or people on the shoulder, or there’s a ladder in the lane — you know, miles in advance.”

TxDOT said it chose SH 130 because it’s a newer highway and already designed with infrastructure to support the technology. Also, a lot of self-driving trucks already use the highway, according to TxDOT. 

Independent of the smart-corridor project, two major companies behind self-driving big rig technology told KXAN they plan to remove safety drivers and go completely driverless by the end of the year.

Self-driving 18-wheelers already here

A spokesperson for the California-based company Kodiak Robotics told KXAN it started operating self-driving big rigs on routes around Texas in 2019, always with backup safety drivers.

In that time, “the bulk of Kodiak’s deliveries have been between our Dallas operations hub and Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta,” Kodiak spokesman Daniel Goff said.

Kodiak trucks have driven 2.5 million miles and delivered around five thousand loads in Texas and other states, Goff added.

Another company, Aurora Innovation based in Pennsylvania, began operating self-driving 18-wheelers with backup drivers in Texas in 2020, according to Aurora spokesperson Huy Nguyen.

With more than 30 trucks in its fleet, Aurora is “currently autonomously hauling goods, with vehicle operators behind the wheel, for companies like FedEx, Uber Freight, Werner, Hirschbach, and Schneider daily, with more than 100 trips a week,” Nguyen said. “If you have received a FedEx package in Texas, there is a good chance it’s been transported in an autonomous truck!”

Both companies told KXAN they plan to remove drivers on Dallas to Houston routes on Interstate 45 later this year and both said their autonomous vehicle technologies don’t require smart corridors to operate.

How the ‘smart freight corridor’ works

Tyler Duvall is the CEO of Washington D.C.-based startup Cavnue, the company TxDOT hired to transform the section of SH 130.

“Aviation is the best analogy,” he said. “You’ve got incredibly sophisticated aircraft, but they would never fly without an air traffic control function.”

Duvall said his company plans to begin installing equipment along SH 130 within the next six to eight months.

“So, we put poles, sensors, cameras, lots of technology up on the roadway, backed by software behind the roadway to crank out all kinds of analytics and analysis around what’s happening on the roadway,” he said.

Real-time road conditions, like weather changes, road hazards and traffic will be communicated directly to the autonomous semis, he said.

“I will never forget when I was doing driver’s ed when I was 16 years old many years ago,” Duvall said. “The last question asked was ‘What’s the single most important thing to improve safety on the roadway?’ The answer is time.”

“If you’ve got a truck going 68 miles an hour headed right for a stalled vehicle in the left lane, it’s a lot better to have that information two miles ahead than it is 300 meters ahead,” he said.

In September 2023, TxDOT entered into a $1.4 million contract with Cavnue for work on the smart corridor, according to records obtained by KXAN through the Texas Public Information Act.

According to the contract, the technology would “enable the development and operation of a live testing ground that permits TxDOT” to “evaluate integrated roadway and technology improvements that enable automated and connected driving systems” and allow TxDOT to scale the services on the agency’s portion of the SH-130 corridor, according to the statement of work.

Last month, Cavnue launched a similar project in partnership with the State of Michigan, testing driverless passenger vehicles in dedicated lanes.

Trucking association concerns: Texans used as ‘guinea pigs’

Lewie Pugh represents the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

“Your highways and roads in the State of Texas are definitely being used as guinea pigs,” he told KXAN.

Pugh said his group is not against technology in driverless vehicles and on roads, but he worries about the accuracy of the road information and believes the focus should stay on cars for now. He cited safety concerns and crashes involving cars with self-driving capabilities.

“It’s probably good to get this stuff working right in a car before we put it to an 80,000-pound truck and turn it loose on the highway,” Pugh said.

John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association, said he supports creating a smart roadway.

“The trucking industry is constantly working to improve safety, and this is good for all Texans, Esparza wrote in a statement to KXAN. “Smart Roads and adopting the advancements in safety technology help us do our part to make our highways safer for all Texans.”

Public fears of autonomous vehicles

While Texas moves full speed ahead on embracing driverless technology, national polls suggest the public would rather pump the brakes on driverless vehicles.

According to the latest AAA survey, 68% of those questioned said they were afraid of fully self-driving vehicles, 13% higher than the year before. 

The study had a margin of error of 4.3% and included over 1,100 interviews with 949 adults across 97% of the U.S. household population, according to AAA.

Arellano believes the SH 130 project will help alleviate fears the community may have because, he said, any vehicle with self-driving features will eventually be able to access the road information.

“We’re motivated to get this off the ground quick because we want to see the benefits with it,” Arellano said. “We’re always motivated to get to zero fatalities one day.”

Process for ‘flipping the switch’

Arellano stressed that while TxDOT is eager to benefit from better road information, the process will be slow and deliberate.

“This isn’t something that we’re flipping the switch on tomorrow,” he said.

He expects the smart corridor to be up and running by the end of this year but not before the state, along with a team from the University of Texas as a third party, verifies the accuracy of the information collected.

“If it’s successful, we can start using this as a template and a standard to start scaling it to other roadways,” Arellano said.

During the testing, TxDOT said it will compare road statistics before and after the use of the smart corridor to gauge any differences.

TxDOT, which will also receive a direct feed of the information relayed to vehicles, said it will also use the information to identify and clear road hazards more quickly. 

Graphic Artist Wendy Gonzalez, Director of Investigations Josh Hinkle, Photojournalist Tim Holcomb, Investigative Photojournalist Chris Nelson and Digital Director Kate Winke contributed to this report.