In late 2018 Rio Tinto announced that AutoHaul, which it called “the world’s first heavy-haul, long distance autonomous rail” operation, had begun running driverless iron-ore trains across its network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The company said it had invested about 940 million US dollars in the programme.
The network is large: roughly 200 locomotives running on more than 1,700 kilometres of track, carrying iron ore from 16 mines to four port terminals. A typical loaded train makes a return trip of around 800 kilometres, a full cycle of about 40 hours including loading and unloading. By December 2018 the trains had travelled more than one million kilometres autonomously.
Rio Tinto framed AutoHaul mainly around safety and efficiency. Removing drivers from the trains eliminated the need to drive crews to and from locomotives mid-journey across remote country, which the company said cut about 1.5 million kilometres of road travel each year. Locomotives carry onboard cameras monitored from an operations centre, and every public level crossing was fitted with CCTV and upgraded safety equipment.
The project is one of the clearest industrial examples of full autonomy deployed at scale outside passenger transport. It pairs with Rio Tinto’s autonomous haul trucks, which move ore and waste within the mines, making the Pilbara operation one of the most automated heavy-industry systems in the world.