Welcome & framing

Opening — The State of Autonomous Logistics

The global proof first: driverless trucking is commercial in the US, scaling in China, and close to zero commercial kilometres on European motorways. Then Europe — where driverless runs today across yards, ports, airports, motorways and pavements, and which pilots can actually scale.

Block 1 — Trucking: the long haul

Commercial in the US, scaling in China, supervised pilots in Europe including the A9. Which corridors go first, what the cost per kilometre has to reach, and who signs the first multi-year contract — with the rulebook, not the technology, as the obstacle: type approval is European, permission to operate is national, and every profitable lane crosses a border.

Block 2 — Ports & airports: the gateway

The most mature driverless ground in Europe — AGVs at Rotterdam, autonomous yard tractors at Hamburg, baggage and cargo tugs on the apron. Controlled, mapped, lower-speed, inside the fence line. The obstacle: what works inside the perimeter doesn't automatically carry beyond it, and inside it the constraints are organisational — shared aprons, labour agreements, terminal systems never built to talk to a vehicle.

Block 3 — Depots: the backbone

The fastest payback in the sector: autonomous yard tractors, mobile robots inside the building, the first lights-out shifts, payback in months. The obstacle is integration, not autonomy — warehouse and yard management systems, twenty years of process built around a human who could improvise, and a workforce conversation from day one.

Block 4 — Last mile: the doorstep

European companies took the last mile commercial first and still lead it — sidewalk robots on paid deliveries in British, Estonian and Finnish towns, road-going pods, autonomous vans. The obstacle is permission, one municipality at a time: no national framework anywhere in Europe, and a pavement is not a road. The second is density — economics that work in a compact town break in a dispersed suburb.

Block 5 — Off-highway & dual-use: the hardest ground

The oldest and most unambiguously profitable driverless business there is — autonomous haulage at scale in mines for over a decade, uncrewed platforms on unstructured terrain with no connectivity and remote supervision. The obstacle: the stack is proven but sits in separate companies, procurement cycles and rooms from the logistics conversation. This session puts them together.

Debate — Europe, the United States & China

Compete, partner or both? A sharply moderated debate on handling the two global leaders. American entrants tend to own the full stack and keep the margin; Chinese players are more open to partnership but less versed in European customers and policy. In a low-trust world, how does Europe claim its place?

Closing — What Europe Does Next

The chairs of the sector sessions set out what was agreed, what remains contested, and what has to happen in the next twelve months to move Europe from pilots to paid, driverless freight. The room leaves with a short set of priorities — for operators, for manufacturers, and for the institutions that set the pace.

Chair's close