Don鈥檛 be surprised if you soon see driverless delivery trucks on North Texas roadways 鈥� they鈥檙e making food deliveries to three Dallas-Fort Worth area Kroger stores.
The company announced a partnership with autonomous truck delivery company to deliver the food. Gatik will operate 20-foot trucks that are capable of transporting frozen food seven days a week to make multiple deliveries to three Kroger locations from the company鈥檚 Dallas distribution center.
Gatik, headquartered in Mountain View, California, has an operations hub out the in Fort Worth. Gatik also completes deliveries to Sam鈥檚 Clubs across DFW, and to Walmarts in Arkansas and Louisiana. It operates 25 trucks in North Texas and 45 nationwide.
Gatik鈥檚 partnership with Kroger will start sometime in spring.
The goal is to increase the speed of fulfilling online orders and reduce costs. Ra煤l Bujalil, vice president of supply chain strategy and technology enablers at Kroger, said customers will benefit greatly from the partnership.
鈥淭hese autonomous box trucks will help us continue our commitment to creating a seamless shopping experience 鈥� where customers can access their favorite fresh foods, with zero compromise on value or convenience,鈥� Bujalil wrote in a statement.
Trucks will run 12 hours a day, seven days a week and will be doing a minimum of four runs to each of the drop off locations, Gatik spokesman Richard Steiner said. The trucks will start with a 鈥渟afety driver鈥� before letting the vehicles on the road on its own.
Safety drivers are important, Steiner said, because they collect a huge amount of data to ensure the delivery truck can navigate the roads without getting into harm鈥檚 way. Safety drivers could be in the vehicle anywhere from 19-25 months, he said.
North Texas is is collaborating with Werner to launch a 600-mile autonomous truck route Alphabet鈥檚 Waymo opened a hub that operates 20 autonomous trucks in Lancaster, and plans to add a self-driving route between Fort Worth and Houston. Texas has regulations that
鈥淚t鈥檚 a really good place for us to be both from the regulatory environment, from the commercial environment,鈥� Steiner said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking forward to continuing to lay down very, very deep roots in the state.鈥�
Seth Bodine is a business and economic development reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at seth.bodine@fortworthreport.org and follow him on Twitter at .