Dive Brief:

• Pilot Company has opened its first autonomous truck terminal alongside self-driving trucking company Kodiak Robotics, according to an Aug. 17 announcement from both companies.
• The terminal is located at the Pilot travel center in Villa Rica, Georgia, about 33 miles west of downtown Atlanta. It will be used to launch and land autonomous trucks, as well as serve as a hub for drivers to pick up and drop off first- and last-mile deliveries, according to the announcement.
• This service comes a year after the companies announced their partnership. Pilot made a “strategic investment” into Kodiak and joined its board of directors as the two companies aimed to develop autonomous truck services at Pilot’s travel centers.

Dive Insight:

The trucking terminal in Villa Rica is the first step of Pilot and Kodiak’s expansion. The companies are exploring where else within Pilot’s travel center network to build these types of facilities moving forward, according to the announcement.

The new service highlight’s Pilot’s focus on using new technologies to maintain a safety-first focus within the trucking industry, Brandon Trama, director of strategy and business development at Pilot, said in the announcement.

“Working with Kodiak aligns with our emphasis on improving the quality of life for professional drivers,” Trama said. “Autonomous trucks focus on the long, repeatable highway miles, leaving the more enticing local, first- and last-mile deliveries for professional drivers who can stay closer to home.”

The Villa Rica location will be the eastern satellite hub for Kodiak’s 18,000-mile-long autonomous deployment network — the trucking industry’s largest set of mapped routes for self-driving trucks, according to the announcement. Kodiak’s main hub is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The location will also offer various truck services, such as refueling, maintenance and pre-trip inspections.

“This partnership, combined with Kodiak’s flexible technology stack, enables our scalable, asset-light approach to building our truckport network,” Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak, said in the announcement. “The freight lane between Dallas and Atlanta is critical to the nation’s supply chain and economy, and this truckport enables us to refine our operations model as we continue to grow.”

Founded in 2018, Mountain View, California-based Kodiak develops autonomous technology for long-haul trucks aimed at making the freight industry safer and more efficient. Its technology integrates sensors into a sensor-pod structure, which optimizes for perception, scalability and maintainability.

Knoxville, Tennessee-based Pilot is the largest travel center company in the U.S. with more than 870 locations across 44 states and six Canadian provinces. The retailer is a majority owned subsidiary of multinational holding company Berkshire Hathaway.