Driverless supply autos are set to hit Toronto streets this spring as a part of a provincial pilot program.
In a report back to the city’s infrastructure and environment committee, Barbara Grey, common supervisor of transportation companies, mentioned this system, run by Magna Worldwide Inc., will start in some unspecified time in the future within the second quarter of 2025.
Magna’s driverless, three-wheeled “Final Mile Supply System” autos shall be delivering small packages all through a number of west finish and downtown wards over time, together with all of Ward 9 Davenport, and parts of Ward 4 Parkdale-Excessive Park, Ward 5 York South-Weston, Ward 11 College-Rosedale and Ward 12 Toronto-St. Paul’s. The autos have acquired a allow below federal legislation that enables them for use in Canada for as much as a 12 months.
Every automobile may have fixed human oversight from a “chase automobile,” Grey mentioned, with a supervisor able to fast intervention. Moreover, a distant human operator can assume management throughout “advanced situations.”
“Vital security measures embody most velocity of 32 kilometres per hour, travelling solely on roads with a posted restrict of 40 kilometres per hour or much less, no use of left turns, and adherence to internationally acknowledged cybersecurity and privateness requirements,” Grey mentioned within the report.
The autos are roughly the dimensions of a big cargo bike with the common top of a typical sedan, the report reads. It’ll have area to hold small packages saved in separate locked compartments, that are secured with a multi-digit code solely recognized to the receiving buyer.
An undated picture of Magna’s “Final Mile Supply System” is proven throughout operations in Michigan. The picture is contained in a report back to Toronto’s infrastructure and surroundings committee, which is being advised these autos are coming to town’s streets as a part of a pilot undertaking.
Metropolis of Toronto/picture
The report went into additional element in regards to the automobile, and cited Magna’s piloting of it on roads close to Detroit, Mich., from 2022 to 2023 “and not using a security incident.”

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The committee is being advised town has no regulatory authority over the provincial pilot, nevertheless Ontario’s transportation ministry invited metropolis workers to evaluation Magna’s software into Ontario’s Automated Automobile Pilot Program and supply enter.
Grey mentioned metropolis workers didn’t supply an opinion on the potential of the automobile’s automated navigation however targeted on “operational-side measures” to boost security and make sure the metropolis’s alternative to be taught from the pilot.
Magna envisions as much as 20 autos throughout the pilot program, however it wants ministry approval earlier than deploying extra autos, Grey mentioned.
“Primarily based on experiences in the USA, it appears clear that stress will develop over time to deploy autos with numerous varieties and ranges of automation on Toronto streets,” Grey wrote within the report.
“This modest pilot with low-speed autos is a crucial alternative to extend our information on the state of the expertise.”

Ontario’s Automated Automobile Pilot Program is a 10-year-long initiative that started in 2016 and was up to date three years later to permit the testing of automated autos on provincial roads below strict circumstances, together with a requirement to have a driver for security causes.
The infrastructure and surroundings committee will take into account asking metropolis council to direct the final supervisor of transportation service to writer a report back to the committee on the findings and classes realized from Magna’s pilot. That report is estimated to be due no later than the fourth quarter of 2026.
This isn’t the primary time driverless autos have been pitched in Toronto; in 2021, Toronto tried launching an automatic shuttle pilot in Scarborough, however attributable to components exterior of its management —like the corporate contracted to produce the shuttles going out of enterprise — it scrapped this system the next 12 months.
The committee is scheduled to satisfy on Might 7.
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