Venti brings driverless yard trucks to US yards

Venti Technologies’ driverless container trucks have worked PSA’s port in Singapore for nearly three years. Traffic there runs in one big loop, so the trucks never had to back up.

U.S. rail yards are less forgiving. Venti says a Class I intermodal railroad plans to run more than 130 Venti trucks across eight sites by 2027. First, the Boston-based company had to teach its trucks two skills Singapore never required, founder and CEO Heidi Wyle told FreightWaves.

Backing an articulated rig is among trucking’s most challenging maneuvers, FreightWaves noted when Outrider added autonomous trailer backing to its distribution-yard tractors in 2022.

“So now when we came to the US, we had to teach our big 60-foot-long tractor-trailer vehicles how to back up,” Wyle said. “So you know we have videos of them actually backing up with 4-inch clearance on either side.”

This story was originally published by FreightWaves. Read the full story at FreightWaves →