About four weeks after delivering a load of Budweiser beer, on what’s widely considered as the world’s first autonomously driven commercial trip, tech trucking company Otto will embark on a second haul on the roads of Ohio.
Owned by the immensely popular ride-sharing company Uber, Otto will in early December program an autonomously driven semi truck to drive a 35-mile segment of U.S. Route 33 between the cities of Dublin and East Liberty in Ohio, as well as an undisclosed segment of the Ohio Turnpike, Department of Transportation representative Matt Bruning revealed.
The heavily used turnpike is a 241-mile major route between the East Coast and Chicago.
The semi truck will be delivering a one-time commercial load of beer, like Otto’s first autonomous early-October 120-mile trip.
Last month’s Otto-manned trip in the Denver, Colorado area took place during pre-dawn hours in order to circumvent pedestrians and traffic. The second trip, however, will be more risky as this week’s delivery will feature driving through traffic.
Otto’s retrofit technology package is what autonomously commands the truck to drive on highways. Like the October test run, the Ohio Otto semi trucking trip will have a driver controlling the process throughout the drive.
Ohio Governor John Kasich has been a vocal supporter of the autonomous driving technology in the midwestern state. Over the weekend, he tweeted that by “embracing self-driving vehicles [Ohio] will be among the 1st to benefit from rewarding industries & jobs that follow.”