Rio gets green light for driverless trains in Australia's Pilbara

Rio Tinto on Friday said it had been given permission to run driverless trains at its iron ore business in Western Australia.

The company said Australia's Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator had approved 'AutoHaul' trains. The project is on schedule to be completed by the end of 2018, Rio said.

“Once commissioned, the network will be the world's first heavy haul, long distance autonomous rail operation, unlocking significant safety and productivity benefits for the business,” Rio said.

It added that Pilbara shipments guidance for 2018 remained between 330m - 340m tonnes.

Trains started running in autonomous mode with a driver on-board monitoring operations in the first quarter of 2017. At the end of the first quarter of 2018, about 65% of all train kilometres were completed in autonomous mode. More than 3m kilometres have now been completed in this mode, Rio said.

Rio Tinto operates about 200 locomotives on more than 1,700 kilometres of track in the Pilbara, transporting ore from 16 mines to four port terminals.