World’s first fully autonomous freight train goes for a spin in Australia
While every transportation company on Earth is racing to build fully autonomous vehicle they've all been beaten to market by the world's first fully autonomous freight train
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Griffin, M. (2017) 'World’s first fully autonomous freight train goes for a spin in Australia', 311 Institute, 10 October. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/worlds-first-fully-autonomous-freight-train-goes-for-a-spin-in-australia/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
This week Rio Tinto, who are already operating the world’s largest autonomous dump truck, the 250 ton electric Komatsu AHV, announced they’d achieved another first - a sixty mile test run of the world’s first fully autonomous freight train in the great Australian outback.
The Australian mining company, who along with its biggest competitor BHP Billiton, have both been fully automating the world's mines, as well as move their supply chains onto the blockchain, announced it’s been running trains in autonomous mode since the beginning of 2017, and that as of July around 20 percent of train runs were being completed autonomously.
The world's first autonomous train
That said though they also stressed that up until the latest successful pilot, which had no human aboard at all, the trains had all had drivers on board as a failsafe.
"This successful pilot run puts us firmly on track to meet our goal of operating the world's first fully autonomous heavy haul, long distance rail network," said Rio Tinto chief executive Chris Salisbury.
While there are already a few prototype autonomous train systems in existence, for example France's SNCF train, and a few autonomous subways and airport shuttles, like the ones at London’s Heathrow, this is the world's first fully functional autonomous freight train and the success puts Rio Tinto firmly on track to meet their goal of building a fully autonomous train network in 2018.
Trains, in many ways, make ideal autonomous vehicles because unlike trucks, ships and even aircraft their navigational requirements and the environments they operate in are much simpler, and that makes switching over to a driverless system much more feasible, and now that Rio Tinto has finished its first successful pilot you can expect more companies and industries to follow suit.
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While every transportation company on Earth is racing to build fully autonomous vehicle they've all been beaten to market by the world's first fully autonomous freight train
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Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
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Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 10 October 2017. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2017). World’s first fully autonomous freight train goes for a spin in Australia. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/worlds-first-fully-autonomous-freight-train-goes-for-a-spin-in-australia/
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