Aurora has crossed a major milestone, launching its commercial self-driving service in Texas, with an initial delivery route between Dallas and Houston.

Aurora has been testing its Aurora Driver platform, completing over 1,200 miles without a driver. The company recently complete its Safety Case, clearing the way for the company to begin operations. Its initial route is between Dallas and Houston, Texas, but the company plans to expand to El Paso, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona by year’s end.

“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads,” said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora. “Riding in the back seat for our inaugural trip was an honor of a lifetime – the Aurora Driver performed perfectly and it’s a moment I’ll never forget.”

“Our commitment to building a transformative technology, earning trust, and assembling a strong ecosystem of customers and partners have made this pivotal milestone possible,” added Urmson.

Aurora Is Working to Solve the Trucking Crisis

Aurora hopes its self-driving system can help address the myriad of issues plaguing the trucking industry, including aging drivers, runaway costs, high turnover, and a lack of interest in trucking among younger generations.

“When Uber Freight and Aurora came together more than four years ago, we set out to transform the future of logistics—and today, that future is here,” said Lior Ron, Founder and CEO of Uber Freight. “Moving autonomous commercial freight without anyone behind the wheel is a historic step forward in our mission to build a smarter and more efficient supply chain, and one we’re proud to lead alongside Aurora.”

“Aurora’s transparent, safety-focused approach to delivering autonomous technology has always given me confidence they’re doing this the right way,” said Richard Stocking, CEO of Hirschbach Motor Lines. “Transforming an old school industry like trucking is never easy, but we can’t ignore the safety and efficiency benefits this technology can deliver. Autonomous trucks aren’t just going to help grow our business – they’re also going to give our drivers better lives by handling the lengthier and less desirable routes.”

Commitment to Safety

Given the high stakes, especially given the damage an out-of-control semi-truck could do, Aurora has placed a strong emphasis on safety.

The company’s recent Safety Case is an industry first, combining data on both passenger vehicles and autonomous trucks.

A Safety Case Framework combines guidance from government organizations, best practices from safety-critical industries, voluntary industry standards and consortia, academic research, and what an organization has learned in its own work. In the autonomous vehicle industry, it’s an important tool for developing self-driving vehicles that will operate safely on public roads and delivering these vehicles to partners, customers, and the public.

Aurora’s Safety Case Framework is the first self-driving framework ever to address the safety of both autonomous trucks and passenger cars. We developed it to help us evaluate the entire development lifecycle for both our trucking and passenger mobility products, so that we deliver both a safe and scalable product to our partners and customers.

As we continue to learn and expand our testing operations to new environments and platforms, our Framework will evolve. We will adapt it to different scenarios, including operations with and without a human driver, varied platforms, and expanded environments.The Framework portion here is just our first version. We are sharing the top four levels of the Framework because it’s important for our partners, customers, and the public to understand why we are confident in our progress towards delivering the Aurora Driver. We will continue to share updates to our Framework as it evolves.

Conclusion

Aurora’s self-driving trucking service is an important step forward in autonomous driving, and underscores the importance of the technology far outside the passenger vehicle market.