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The medium-duty trucks will start off under the supervision of on-board human safety drivers, but will eventually transition to fully driverless operations, Gatik said — although a spokesperson did not reveal when that might take place. The fleet will service more than 300 Loblaw stores across the GTA.

Gatik said the deal represents the largest planned rollout of autonomous trucks in North America. But some autonomous driving experts question whether the technology is ready for such a step forward.

“The challenge is that there’s just millions and millions of different things that can happen on the road,” said Krzysztof Czarnecki, a professor at the University of Waterloo and associate director of the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research. “What do we have in the world to show us that we can go driverless? In some sense, there’s very little.”

But other experts note the technology is already “very robust” and in some cases safer than a human behind the wheel. Here’s what you should know.

Gatik’s track record and safety measures

This isn’t Gatik’s first time around the block. Loblaw first partnered with the AI company in 2020, when it tested one autonomous delivery truck in the GTA. The next year, this autonomous fleet was increased to five, with safety drivers aboard. And in 2022, the companies deployed their .

“Gatik’s trucks have not been involved in any incidents while operating in autonomous mode throughout the entire duration of our operations in Canada,” Rich Steiner, vice president of government relations and public affairs at Gatik, told the Star.

“Gatik utilizes an industry-leading safety case approach to ensure that all facets of safety … are rigorously reviewed, continuously monitored and executed to completion with substantial peer-reviewed evidence prior to commencing operations,” he said, adding that the company’s “entire safety landscape” has been submitted for “rigorous” .

The company’s rollout is part of Ontario’s Automated Commercial Motor Vehicle (ACMV) Pilot Program, which Gatik helped to develop. Launched at the start of August, the 10-year program allows participants to test automated vehicles on Ontario roads, enabling Gatik’s trucks to run on “all surface streets and highways in the province,” the company said.

While the program has streams for both driver-supervised and driverless vehicles, it stipulates that a human supervisor must always be present, either inside the vehicle or remotely.

Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation said the program is the first of its kind in Canada and was “developed from extensive consultations with road-safety partners, municipalities and industry leaders.

“The pilot sets strict safety conditions for carriers and drivers, including insurance requirements, pre-approved routes, safety signage, and mandatory data reporting,” spokesperson Tanya Blazina wrote over email.

While a Loblaw spokesperson declined to comment on the safety of Gatik’s trucks, they did address another fear many have when it comes to automation, saying: “there is no impact to our workforce as a result of our partnership with Gatik.”

“This is about adding capacity and building a more innovative, resilient supply chain. By expanding our fleet with Gatik’s next-generation technology, we’re able to move products to our stores more frequently and reliably — ensuring shelves stay stocked and customers benefit from greater freshness, availability, and service,” said Loblaw public relations head Catherine Thomas. 

Are self-driving cars safe?

Czarnecki said that, as long as a properly-trained safety driver is on board monitoring the process, “I don’t have a concern” with an automated vehicle. “But it’s a different story if it’s a driverless vehicle.”

He worries that sensor technologies are not yet at a point where they can account for the myriad of scenarios one can encounter on the road, especially taking º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøtraffic into consideration. Czarnecki cited previous autonomous vehicle crashes in Toronto, like a 2021 incident where a self-driving shuttle , leaving its human attendant with critical injuries.

Given the larger size and weight of Gatik’s trucks, the stakes are far higher: “With any larger vehicle, you have more potential, more kinetic energy, for basically any type of accident,” he said. “If you’re going at highway speeds, that’s the biggest potential for significant damage and crashes.”

But Steven Waslander, director of the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøRobotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Toronto, said he would “concretely disagree” with Czarnecki’s assessment.

“Is self-driving possible and does it exist? Absolutely,” Waslander, who has collaborated with Gatik in the past, told the Star. He pointed to the case of self-driving taxi company Waymo, which after launching its first fully-autonomous ride on public streets in 2015, has spread to cities across the U.S. including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin.

reveals that, after driving over 96 million total miles without a human driver, its taxis have resulted in 80 per cent fewer injury-causing crashes compared to the average human driver, and more than 90 per cent fewer crashes involving pedestrians.

“I’m suspecting that it’s actually probably safer than the average human driver” to rely on Gatik’s self-driving trucks, Waslander said.

Czarnecki rebutted that Waymo chose to only operate in temperate, snowless climates for a reason. In snowy Toronto, the weather conditions can prove a further hurdle Gatik’s sensor systems.

Czarnecki also noted it’s “very tricky” to effectively compare the safety of an autonomous vehicle with a human driver: “You have to get just the right data and you have account for many confounding factors to have a proper comparison,” he said.

Still other experts, including Bilal Farooq, Canada research chair in disruptive transportation technologies and services at º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøMetropolitan University, believe Gatik has a “very strong case safety wise” given that the company has been running pilots on fixed º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøroutes for years.

All that being said, “there’s definitely more that could be done” to promote safety in autonomous vehicles, Waslander said, especially when it came to transparency.

“From a public perspective, I think transparency and visibility into the safety records for the driverless companies would be essential,” he said. “We shouldn’t be allowing test programs to operate without being told how they are doing and whether they’re making our roads more dangerous.