DANISH shipping giant Maersk is using self-driving trucks developed by Kodiak Robotics to run loads between Houston and Oklahoma City, part of the carrier's ongoing investments in furthering supply chain automation.

The carrier said it has been running commercial loads for its customers using Kodiak-powered trucks and a safety driver since August. The two companies began collaborating in November 2022 through Maersk's Global Innovation Centre.

The dry-van trucks make four round trips per week between warehouses in Houston and Oklahoma City and Maersk said Kodiak uses the data from the trips to help other companies learn how to deploy self-driving technology, reports New York's Journal of Commerce.

"We expect self-driving trucks to ultimately become a competitive advantage for Maersk as we execute on our strategy to provide customers with a sustainable, end-to-end logistics solution across air, land and sea," Erez Agmoni, Maersk's head of innovation, said in a statement.

Autonomous trucks are necessary to stave off a looming shortage of truck drivers, Maersk said, citing statistics from the American Trucking Associations that the trucking industry faces a shortage of 78,000 drivers currently that could reach 160,000 over the next decade.

The partnership with Kodiak is not Maersk's first attempt at furthering autonomous driving technology. Maersk in 2021 said it was testing the use of autonomous trailer yard trucks developed by ISEE after the carrier's venture capital arm made an investment in the company.

Last year, Kodiak announced tests of autonomous trucks with other carriers and shippers. Kodiak partnered with US Xpress on a pilot project of self-driving trucks between Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta.

Werner Enterprises also partnered with Kodiak on establishing autonomous truck routes and enabling trailer handoffs.

IKEA is also testing Kodiak's trucks on a route between the retailer's Baytown distribution centre near the Port of Houston and a store in Frisco, Texas.