Freight transport: Autonomous electric truck crosses border on its own

The Swedish company Einride, which specializes in autonomous transport vehicles, has succeeded in having one of its self-driving electric trucks carry out a cross-border transport operation on its own. The autonomous electric truck crossed the border between Norway and Sweden near Ørje and delivered parcels of goods to the neighboring country.

The autonomous electric lorry from Eindrive has no driver's cab and no passenger compartment. A driver—also as operator—is therefore not on board. The vehicle is fully electrically powered by the Einride Driver, the company's own autonomous drive stack, which enables the lorry to drive autonomously. The vehicle is monitored via the intelligent Control Tower software platform, which is used to manage the fleet and monitor the autonomous vehicles.

Automation of customs clearance

Autonomous cross-border vehicle operation is no trivial matter. Many different national regulations, such as customs procedures, as well as technical obstacles such as inconsistent traffic signage, must be considered and resolved.

The autonomous border crossing carried out by Einride took place as part of the EU MODI project. The project aims to enable safe, autonomous heavy goods transport. The aim is to speed up transport and logistics tasks through the use of connected, cooperative, and automated mobility (CCAM) systems. Einride is part of this project, which involves a total of 34 organizations and other partners as well as eight countries. These include Volvo, DAF, Maersk, and, as a public partner, the City of Hamburg, among others.

Tolletaten, the Norwegian customs authority, is also involved in the project, even though Norway is not a member of the EU. However, the country's customs authority is very interested in simplifying cross-border customs clearance at border crossings through automation.

To achieve this, Einride has integrated its electric lorries into Norway's digital customs system, Digitoll. Einride's partner company Q-Free has realized this connection so that goods can be declared digitally in advance. This significantly simplifies the customs clearance process at the border.

The autonomous border crossing from Sweden to Norway was realized on the initiative of Swedish and Norwegian project partners. In addition to Einride, Statens Vegvesen, Sintef, Q-Free, Trafikverket, and Østfold Kommune were involved. The Swedish-Danish logistics company PostNord, whose parcels were transported, was also involved.

(olb)