Why This Matters to Distributors: McLane’s rollout offers a model for using autonomous trucks on recurring routes between facilities while retaining drivers for customer deliveries.
The companies’ operating model assigns long-haul freight movement to Aurora’s self-driving system and customer deliveries to McLane drivers.
Highway Hauls and Customer Deliveries McLane is introducing autonomous trucks into one part of its transportation network while keeping employees responsible for deliveries to restaurants.
Its deployment has a defined highway route, regular freight demand and human drivers handling the customer delivery portion of the trip.
McLane has said its drivers will continue making customer deliveries, but the rollout announcement does not quantify changes in total driver employment or transportation labor costs.