Stepping up its efforts to become the world’s first fully autonomous harbor by the end of the year, the Chinese port of Caofeidian will have 20 human-driven trucks replaced by autonomous terminal tractor-trucks.
The trucks will be provided by the US-Chinese company TuSimple. Robert Brown, Director of Public Affairs at TuSimple, explained that the closed and controlled nature of a port environment makes it an ideal setting for the first testing of the company’s technology.
The port of Caofeidian, located in the city of Tangshan, currently handles around 300,000 TEU containers a year.
Self-driving container vehicles have seen an increasing interest for container handling in other ports as well, such as Yangshan Phase 4 in Shanghai, and Maasvlakte 2 in Rotterdam. However, Caofeidian may be the first port to test fully self-driving trucks.
Recently, China has opened its new fully-automated port terminal in Shanghai Yangshan Deep Water Port, which became the world’s biggest automated container terminal, boosting the country’s efforts to be at the forefront of global trade.
