An autonomous driving truck transported the 40,000th load on Dec 23 at Yangshan port in East China's Shanghai city – marking a milestone in the commercial container service driven by 5G transport there.

The landmark was achieved by the first intelligent driving container transfer business operating in a port in China.

According to Fang Huaijin, vice president of Shanghai International Port Group or SIPG, the intelligent heavy trucks have higher operational efficiency than manually driven ones and help make the traffic flow better connecting to the Donghai Bridge with round-the-clock operations.

Plans are for SIPG to launch pure electric heavy smart trucks and even hydrogen fueled ones to make the port's development more green and sustainable.

After more than two years of development, the intelligent heavy trucks now have the requisite automatic driving and cargo transport capacity for the container route linking Yangshan Port wharf, Donghai Bridge, and Deep Water Port Logistics Park. To date, the smart heavy trucks have transferred about 61,000 TEUs – or standard Twenty-foot equivalent Unit containers – in total.

There are currently a total of 14 intelligent heavy trucks in operation. Plans are for a fleet next year of more than 30 smart heavy trucks to shift 100,000 TEUs of containers at the port annually.

Brightly colored containers are stacked, waiting to be moved in Yangshan port in Shanghai. [Photo/VCG]