Rio Tinto has successfully deployed AutoHaul™, establishing the world’s largest robot and first automated heavy-haul, long distance rail network.

Since completing the first loaded run in July, Rio Tinto has steadily increased the number of autonomous journeys across its world-class iron ore operations in Western Australia in a controlled and safe manner, with over 1 million kilometres now travelled autonomously.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore managing director Rail, Port & Core Services Ivan Vella said “The safe and successful deployment of AutoHaul™ across our network is a strong reflection of the pioneering spirit inside Rio Tinto. It’s been a challenging journey to automate a rail network of this size and scale in a remote location like the Pilbara, but early results indicate significant potential to improve productivity, providing increased system flexibility and reducing bottlenecks.”

Over the coming months we will continue to refine our autonomous operations to ensure we are able to maximise value. We continue to work closely with drivers during this period and do not expect to make any redundancies in 2019 as a result of the deployment of AutoHaul™.