Rio Tinto world-first autonomous trains network now fully operational

According to Mining News Pro - 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 km now travelled autonomously. The driverless train program is now fully operational ten years after it was first proposed.

Rio Tinto’s Ivan Vella, Iron Ore managing director of Rail, Port & Core Services, commented “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.”