Trucking News · Nationwide · October 31, 2026

Truckers, Take Note: Driverless Yard Trucks Are Headed to U.S. Rail Yards, and the Company Says They Can Back Up With 4 Inches to Spare

By Big Rig Daily Staff

Driverless trucks are coming to U.S. rail yards, according to the company building them. Boston-based Venti Technologies says a Class I intermodal railroad plans to run more than 130 of its driverless container trucks across eight sites by 2027, FreightWaves reported on Oct. 30. The U.S. fleet has not started work, and neither company has named the railroad or disclosed terms.

Teaching trucks to back up

Venti's driverless trucks have worked at PSA's port in Singapore for nearly three years. Traffic there runs in one big loop, so the trucks never had to back up. U.S. rail yards are less forgiving.

"So now when we came to the US, we had to teach our big 60-foot-long tractor-trailer vehicles how to back up," founder and CEO Heidi Wyle told FreightWaves. "So you know we have videos of them actually backing up with 4-inch clearance on either side." FreightWaves noted that backing an articulated rig is among trucking's most challenging maneuvers. The trucks also have to cross live track on their own. "Our vehicle now sees trains," Wyle said, describing how they see signs come down and read signal lights.

What the trucks would do

At an intermodal terminal, hostlers bring containers trackside or to the storage area. That trackside shuttle is the work the railroad wants the trucks to take on, Wyle said. The company's Oct. 1 release says the trucks will load, move and unload containers during live yard operations with nobody in the cab and no dedicated lanes. FreightWaves noted that the release does not say whether human hostlers will keep working beside them at the U.S. sites.

Wyle put monthly driver turnover in some places at around 20%. "If you ask where is it that people don't want to be, it's in Texas in July, right?" she said.

The numbers and the timeline

• More than 130 trucks across eight sites by 2027, according to the October release. A July release projected "100-plus."
• The fleet could pass 600 by the end of the decade, the company said.
• Venti signed a long term agreement with the railroad in July, starting at two of its busiest U.S. intermodal facilities.
• The deal grew out of a three month proof of concept. Wyle said that six weeks in, the railroad told Venti it had hit all the metrics.

Singapore track record

Venti now runs a 30 truck driverless fleet in Asia, Wyle said. At PSA Singapore, those trucks work beside about 1,200 human driven trucks, according to the Oct. 1 release. The company says the fleet has logged more than 500,000 autonomous miles and moved more than 360,000 containers. These are company figures.

A calmer yard

Wyle said the bigger payoff is predictability. In today's intermodal yards chassis get dropped wherever there is room, and owners sometimes send drones to find them, she said. "Our trucks are going to be exactly at a place exactly when they're supposed to be there," she said, adding that the railroad wants to start rebuilding yards to be "less chaotic and more controlled."

For other autonomous trucking coverage, see Big Rig Daily's reports on DTL Transport adding 75 Kodiak driverless trucks and New Mexico's driverless truck testing rules.

Quick facts

• Company: Venti Technologies of Boston.
• Plan: more than 130 driverless yard trucks at eight U.S. sites by 2027.
• Status: the U.S. fleet has not started work, and the railroad has not been named.

A question for readers

Would you trust a truck with nobody in it to back up next to you in a busy yard?

Save this story for later

Save this to Pinterest