Loblaw, Gatik Launch Fully Driverless Deployment In Canada

(RTTNews) - Canadian food and pharmacy retailer Loblaw Companies Ltd. (L) announced Wednesday its partnership with Gatik, an autonomous middle mile logistics company, to launch fully driverless commercial operations.

Gatik is now moving select online grocery orders, for Loblaw's PC Express service, with a fleet of multi-temperature autonomous box trucks.

Loblaw noted that autonomous delivery enables it to operate more routes and make more frequent trips, establishing a supply chain that is safer, more sustainable and more resilient.

Since January 2020, Loblaw and Gatik have transported more than 150,000 autonomous deliveries, with a 100 percent safety record.

The partnership follows an extensive, third-party safety review commissioned by Loblaw over a three-month period.

The assessment of various testing also included sending degraded/incorrect sensor data, GPS jamming/spoofing, incorrect acceleration with objects in front, etc. This paved the way for Gatik's fleet to transport ambient, refrigerated, and frozen goods seven days a week from a Loblaw distribution facility to five nearby retail locations in the Greater Toronto Area on fixed, repetitive, predictable routes.

In 2021, Gatik became the first autonomous trucking company worldwide to remove the safety driver from a commercial delivery route on the middle mile, transporting goods for Walmart in Arkansas, USA.