Stantec Generation AV - AVs & Goods Movement

Autonomous Vehicles & the Cycle of Goods Movement

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Autonomy at every step of the goods movement journey

The e-commerce boom and demand for faster delivery have pushed the trucking industry—in essence, the “middle mile” that first- and last-mile deliveries connect to—toward autonomous vehicles (AVs). With highly predictable routes and lack of cross traffic, interstates and limited access highways play to the strength of automation for long-haul trucking. 

As the industry embraces autonomous trucks, businesses will need access to a new generation of strategically located logistics centers for unloading goods for local last-mile distribution and for refueling (or, increasingly, recharging) to get trucks back on the highway. Using our AV planning skills, we’ll get you ready. 

The Stantec GenerationAV transportation planning and mass transit consultants detail the current state of the autonomous vehicle market in our comprehensive report.

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Accelerating autonomy across the middle mile

We expect trucking will become the first area to deploy AV technology widely. It just makes sense. Consider the journey of a long-haul truck, which is predominantly made up of interstates and limited access highways. The relatively simple path of highways and rural roads (as compared to a heavily populated urban road network), coupled with higher speeds that are the hallmark of highway and rural environments, make for an excellent opportunity to introduce and deploy automation. Recent historic driver shortages as well as the huge benefits of AVs in safety and cost-savings, are driving the widespread adoption across these middle miles.

Enhancing logistics through automation

With the trucking industry moving toward more widespread use of autonomous trucks, we are anticipating demand for strategically sited logistics centers for loading and unloading goods and refueling or recharging. Employing intelligent transportation systems (ITS) for fleet management will be vital. In addition, our AV consultants are working with our warehouse, distribution, and logistics teams, as well as key industry partners to provide a suite of turnkey services for these centers by identifying the best sites, handling all aspects of permitting them, and—because we understand the special requirements of AVs—planning and designing the centers as well. 

AVs, Automation, and the Cycle of Goods Movement

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Related On-Demand Learning Courses

Our team has developed several courses to educate you on the various aspects of the autonomous vehicle industry and its progress. When you click on a course, you will be taken to a log in screen. Please log in as you will then be led to free and for a fee content.