Gatik and Loblaw Make First Fully Driverless Deliveries in Canada

Fully driverless commercial vehicles began to roll out in the Greater Toronto Area this week in what is a Canadian first.

California-based Gatik, which specializes in autonomous driving technology for commercial applications, has teamed up with Canada’s largest food and pharmacy retailer, Loblaw, to deliver select online grocery orders for Loblaw’s PC Express service with a fleet of multi-temperature autonomous box trucks. 

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This is the culmination of a pilot project that started in January of 2020 and included more than 150,000 autonomous deliveries (with a safety driver on board), with a 100 percent safety record.

“Working with Gatik, we’ve demonstrated that autonomous driving technology enables supply chain efficiency, moving more orders more frequently for our customers,” said David Markwell, Chief Technology and Analytics Officer, Loblaw Companies Limited. “Being the first in Canada with this technology and deploying a fully driverless solution is exciting and illustrates our commitment to making grocery shopping better for customers.”

Gatik’s vehicles are based on a Ford Transit 350 van (curiously, not the fully electric E-Transit) and they complete their routes at speeds up to 70 km/h. Certain safety measures are implemented to reduce the risk of a collision, for example making three right turns to avoid turning left in front of oncoming traffic.

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation gave Gatik the green light to pull the safety driver out of the cab earlier this year. And throughout the pilot the company also consulted with city authorities and local first responders.

Gatik explained that during the initial phase of the rollout, a safety passenger with access to an emergency stop button will remain inside the van, and a chase vehicle will take part in each autonomous run. These human safety nets will eventually disappear and be replaced by remote supervisors.

In case of an anomaly or exceptional situation, like roadwork to go around, the truck will pull to the side of the road and wait for the remote supervisor to make a decision.

In 2021, Gatik became the first autonomous trucking company worldwide to remove the safety driver from a medium-distance commercial delivery route, transporting goods for Walmart in Arkansas.