Autonomous Truck Testing Accelerated as Uber ATG and GoMentum Station Announce Partnership

GoMentum Station announces a new partnership today between the with autonomous trucking company Uber Advanced Technology Group (Uber ATG) formerly known as Otto. This exclusive partnership with Otto marks the beginning of autonomous, commercial vehicle testing at GoMentum Station.

Less than three months after making their mission public, Uber ATG has put forth a rapid, to-market approach that presents a promising solution to the challenge of improving highway safety. Partnership with GoMentum Station, the largest secure test facility in the United States, will allow Uber ATG to rapidly ramp up the testing of hardware- and software-enabled trucks across varied terrain, as well as recreate real-life scenarios in a controlled environment.

“Freight transportation is crucial to the American and world economy,” said Randy Iwasaki, Executive Director of CCTA and former Chair of the US Department of Transportation’s National Freight Advisory Committee. Trucks carry the greatest share of the nation’s freight, moving more than 11 billion tons of freight across America’s highways in 2015 alone. “This new technology will not only make travelling safer for commercial drivers and the motorists they share the highway with, it will also increase efficiency in one of our key economic sectors,” added Iwasaki.

With more than five trucks now testing at sites throughout the region 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, Uber ATG will be able to use the testing grounds of GoMentum Station to rapidly test new updates and hardware components. The rapid testing will accelerate the time-to-market for Uber ATG as it works to bring on its first commercial partners. GoMentum Station is already a key hub of testing for personal automobiles and shared, autonomous shuttles. Otto is the first and exclusive partner testing autonomous commercial trucks.

“Long-haul transit is vital for nearly 70 percent of the things we buy, but it comes at a cost, and each year there are thousands of preventable deaths on American highways. At Otto, we believe it’s our responsibility to introduce safer, self-driving technology to the road,” said Lior Ron, Co-founder of Otto. The US Department of Transportation estimates that while commercial freight trucks account for only 5.6 percent of the vehicle miles on US highways, they are responsible for 9.5 percent of highway fatalities. Uber ATG work at GoMentum Station, with the help of CCTA, will speed the rate at which this potentially life-saving technology can be brought to market.