PHOENIX — The U.S. Postal Service has started testing self-driving trucks to transport mail across three states.<br /><br />According to Reuters, the USPS began a two-week pilot program using autonomous trucks from startup company TuSimple to carry the mail on five roundtrips between the distribution centers in Phoenix and Dallas.<br /><br />Each one-way trip through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas is over 1,600 kilometers, which will take 22 hours and include overnight driving.<br /><br />The Verge reports that TuSimple trucks are equipped with nine cameras and two LIDAR sensors to help its vision-based system detect vehicles, pedestrians, and other obstacles up to 1,000 meters away.<br /><br />According to a TuSimple press release, the autonomous trucks have a driver and safety engineer on board for the duration of the testing period.<br /><br />USA Today reports that the pilot can have huge benefits for the Postal Service. It will also help validate TuSimple's system and speed up tech development and commercialization.
