Volvo Group Venture Capital AB recently invested in the U.S.-based company aifleet, a trucking company leveraging its AI technology to focus on truck utilization and driver satisfaction.
"Aifleet is addressing inefficiencies in the trucking industry in a differentiated manner, building technology and proving out its capabilities through their own fleet operations," Joe Darcy, investor at Volvo Group Venture Capital, said. "Not only are they increasing the utilization of the trucks on the road but also making sure drivers have an optimized working environment."
Founded in 2020, aifleet operates in the U.S. full-truckload segment of the trucking industry. The segment is currently fragmented and challenged by low driver utilization, and it is facing inefficiencies such as empty miles in the supply chain.
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"The U.S. full-truckload market size is $400 billion, but it's a massively inefficient and fragmented market with half a million carriers, where even the biggest has less than 1% of the market. As truck utilization has trended downward since 2018, aifleet has developed technology to mitigate the utilization problem to radically improve trucking efficiencies while bringing real humanity back to the driver experience," Marc El Khoury, co-founder and CEO of aifleet, said. "We are excited about Volvo's investment, and we are looking forward to continuing to leverage our technology to create a more sustainable fleet and industry."
With its proprietary AI technology, aifleet is building a trucking fleet focused on increased driver satisfaction that boosts truck utilization with better planning tools and smarter algorithms. According to aifleet, its own operation generates over 40% higher driver utilization than the industry average by optimizing route planning and scheduling as well as building end-to-end automation.
"We're excited about the opportunity to collaborate with aifleet," said Stephen Roy, chairman of Volvo Group North America and president of Mack Trucks. "The Volvo Group is committed to driving innovation and more sustainable transportation solutions, and it's clear that aifleet, leveraging their unique technology, shares our ambition."
