Yard tractors without drivers will show up soon

    "Yard tractors, also known as spotlights, slippers, shunting trucks and terminal tractors or, for those who like the zoological nomenclature, yard birds, horses, dogs or mules. Whatever we call them, these are vehicles that tow trailers from the dock to the dock and are used warehouses and shipyards, one of which Bloomberg tested themselves.

    With pride, Ira Boudway reports that after the first attempt, she successfully parked the 16-meter trailer between the other two.

    Specifically, I was sitting at my dining table in the New Jersey suburbs at the time, opening my laptop. I clicked on a few simple commands and watched online a yard truck drive to a parked trailer in a Brighton (Colorado) warehouse, tow it to an empty dock for 45 meters, park and uncouple - all without human intervention.

    My debut as a warehouse dispatcher was organized by Outrider Technologies Inc., a Colorado startup that manufactures self-propelled yard tractors. The Outrider is another example of how automated and electric vehicles find their purpose in agricultural and industrial spaces, where they can do dirty and dangerous work without encountering passengers or pedestrians. "We have noticed that autonomous vehicles on private, low-speed holdings, such as distribution centers, can have a huge impact," said Andrew Smith, CEO of Outrider, who founded the company in 2017 and headed it until last year (then it was called Azevtec).

    Smith estimates that about 50,000 people are currently exploited in the United States to control yard tugs. Together, they make millions of trips every day, emitting carbon dioxide along the way.  According to Tim Denoyer, a senior analyst at ACT Research, there are about 3,500 such trucks sold in the United States each year, and sales are growing. Most of them are powered by diesel, but according to Denoyer estimates, this year from 10 to 15 percent. the tractors sold will be electric. "The yard spotter was one of the first electrified tractors," he says, "mainly because it travels a short distance and also because the fuel efficiency of diesel is terrible."

    Driving a yard tractor is a tedious job that takes time to master, and it is usually not paid as well as driving long-distance tractors. Staff turnover is high. In addition to towing trailers in busy spaces and diversifying them into tight spaces, drivers have to get out of the cab each time to connect a compressed air hose to the trailer and release the parking brake - the Outrider has had to figure out how to automate this task.

 

    The starter buys electric yard tractors from manufacturers such as Orange EV and installs cameras, radars and sensors to connect the autonomous steering equipment.

 

    Earlier this year in Brighton, north of Denver, the company installed nearly 33,000 sq.m. meters of warehouse and yard where it manufactures and tests the vehicles. For most of the day, several yard tugs pull trailers to and from the 49 warehouse docks. Outrider has the first nine customers to test the new system, which includes trucks, cargo management software and a support center at Golden's headquarters.

    For now, there is a driver at the wheel of each tractor with a large red button that allows you to turn off the robot and take over driving. 

 

Outrider hopes that it will be possible to do without a driver already in 2023. 

 

Last week, when I became the first journalist to be allowed to try out the system, the driver didn’t need a button. After a short lesson by Peter James, Vice President of Outrider Product, I was able to use the drop-down menu on the online dashboard to instruct the tractor to pick up the trailer from parking lot no. 38 and take it to dock no. 15. A robotic hand at the rear of the tractor performed the work of hooking and uncoupling the air hose. It all took about ten minutes, slower than the average driver to do the same, but without errors. Speed ​​will come later, says James. The focus now is on "the accuracy and repeatability of the movements" and on making the job so simple that a complete novice like me can do it."