DHL Puts Driverless Shuttles Into Singapore Hub Ops

Autonomous shuttles move into daily work

DHL Supply Chain has moved electric autonomous vehicles from a pilot challenge into live operations at its Advanced Regional Center in Singapore.

The vehicles come through a partnership with Zelostech and handle point-to-point transfers between logistics facilities on the campus. DHL says employees load the vehicles, dispatch them by mobile app and track the movements in real time.

The operating numbers are small but concrete

Each driverless shuttle can carry up to three pallets or 1.5 tons. The vehicles navigate with sensors, mapping and artificial intelligence, operate around the clock and are being used in areas where repetitive hub-to-hub movements can create timing pressure.

FreightWaves reported that each vehicle averages 40 trips and about 28 kilometers per day. DHL said the setup moves dozens of pallets daily and delivers performance at roughly half the operating cost of diesel trucks.

Why fleet operators will watch it

This is not a long-haul autonomous trucking launch. It is a controlled-campus logistics use case, which is exactly why it matters. Hub shuttles, yard moves and closed-network transfers give fleets a clearer path to test autonomy where routes, speeds and operating rules are more predictable.

For DHL, the deployment also shifts some work from driver supervision to system monitoring and data management. That is the real operational test: whether autonomous equipment can keep freight moving reliably without adding a new layer of dispatch complexity.