The USPS Tests Out Self-Driving Trucks For Hauling Mail

(Wired) Alex Davies May 21 2019 6:00 am The United States Postal Service has a lot of ways to move the 484.8 million pieces of mail it handles every day. In rural Alaska postal workers run hovercraft prop planes and the occasional parachute. They pilot boats in the Louisiana bayou and snowmobiles in Colorado Minnesota Montana Utah and Wisconsin. To reach the Havasupai Indian Reservation town of Supai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon they go by mule train. And now to carry the mail from Phoenix to Dallas theyre letting robots do the work. Starting Tuesday self-driving trucks built by startup TuSimple will haul trailers full of mail and packages all by themselves. Well mostly by themselves: The 18-wheelers will have a certified driver and safety engineer aboard who will handle the driving on surface streets and take control from the robot as needed. The pilot project will last two weeks and include five round trips between the cities distribution hubs. For the postal service autonomy might help it reverse an ugly financial situation. The agency which receives no tax dollars has posted a loss every year for more than a decade. Its five-year strategic plan covering 20172021 is full of talk about being open to innovative solutions. In February it issued a request for information saying it was investigating how autonomous vehicles could fit into its fleet. Its working with the University of Michigan on a self-driving truck to handle rural routes. In a statement a spokesperson called the pilot just one of many ways the postal service is innovating and investing in its future."