Post Office Testing Autonomous Vehicles for Long Hauls

May 21, 2019—TuSimple is providing the autonomous truck for the U.S. Postal Service to test using an autonomous tractor-trailer to deliver mail across state lines, reported CNBC.

The U.S. Postal Service is testing its first long-haul self-driving delivery truck in a two-week pilot program that will use an autonomous tractor trailer to deliver mail between distribution centers in Phoenix, Ariz., and Dallas, Texas.

TuSimple will have a safety engineer and driver in the cab to monitor its performance and take control if there are any issues.

The postal service has been exploring the idea for some time, recently soliciting bids to put semi-autonomous mail trucks on the road in a few years that allow a human to sort the mail while being autonomously driven along their route.