The Ministry of Transport has outlined a roadmap for the development of autonomous cargo transportation in Russia with specific quantitative goals. According to the agency, by the end of 2028, almost a thousand unmanned trucks will be on the roads, and by 2030 the number of such vehicles will exceed 4,000. The ministry emphasizes the economic significance of the technology: it is expected that each autonomous truck will travel about 300 thousand kilometers per year, which is twice as high as the typical mileage for transportation with a driver.
A special emphasis is placed on infrastructure. The project is planned to be developed without additional modernization of the road network. 4G mobile communications are indicated as the basic support, and the use of low-orbit satellite groups is being considered for the future. Such a bundle is important for backbone logistics.: Stable communication determines the quality of remote monitoring, telemetry, and safe driving scenarios.
According to the stages of expansion, the Ministry of Transport indicated that from 2028 it is planned to gradually extend the project to roads of categories M and R, and in 2026, unmanned trucks should enter the Central Ring Road. For the transportation market, this means the emergence of a new "high-speed shelf" on key routes around the country's largest transport hub. In mainline supply chains, shoulder time often decides the fate of the entire batch, so the increase in the actual annual mileage of autonomous tractors looks like a factor in the redistribution of orders.
The agency also recalled the 2025 experiment: an autonomous truck from Navio completed the St. Petersburg—Kazan route (1.6 thousand km) in 24 hours, while a trip along the same route with human participation takes about 58 hours. This example shows where autonomy has a direct effect — in the continuity of movement and in reducing downtime on the graph.
For cargo owners and 3PL, the practical conclusion is related to planning. The unmanned highway increases the requirements for consolidation nodes, for the accuracy of the loading window and for the speed of registration at terminals. The faster the tractor is moving, the more expensive any delay in the warehouse or on the ramp becomes. Companies that set up SLAs for processing in advance will benefit in terms of time and cost. On the side of carriers, the task of preparing a service model arises: route control, backup scenarios, telematics and integration requirements.
