Lawrenceville-based Locomation Inc. has begun offering stakeholders and members of the media the opportunity to ride inside the cabin of its autonomously driven trucks.
It’s the first time the company has made such an opportunity available to those outside of its workforce, and it comes as it prepares to launch a pilot program with one of its partners, which could occur as soon as this summer.
Locomation’s Autonomous Relay ConvoySM demos its technology on PA 576. Photograph by Pittsburgh Business Times.
But it’s also an effort that highlights how Locomation’s technological achievements aren’t just hype or vaporware and that it has enough confidence in the technology to not only test it on public roads, but also to let outsiders serve as validators of its claims as well.
The most recent of these invite-only demos, of which the company said about a dozen or so have taken place over the past few weeks, occurred on Feb. 8. Locomation asked Pittsburgh Inno and an official with the Federal Highway Administration to ride along inside one of its autonomously driven trucks on a 20-mile stretch up and down Pennsylvania Route 576, which started near Pittsburgh International Airport and headed south toward McDonald before turning around to return back to the starting point.
“Ready for autonomy. Ready for autonomy,” a feminine-sounding voice announced as a series of chimes went off inside the cabin at the onset of the trip. “Autonomy engaged.”