A former school administrator, Nichole Thiel has spent most of her career in education. A Coeur d’Alene, Idaho resident, Nichole Thiel recently joined the ranks of many who work for the United States Postal Service (USPS). In keeping up with the times, the USPS is exploring AI in delivering mail to its customers through self-driving trucks.

1. Trends Pushing the USPS
Forward - Self Driving
Trucks
Nichole Thiel

2. Introduction
• A former school administrator, Nichole Thiel has spent most of her
career in education. A Coeur d’Alene, Idaho resident, Nichole Thiel
recently joined the ranks of many who work for the United States Postal
Service (USPS). In keeping up with the times, the USPS is exploring AI in
delivering mail to its customers through self-driving trucks.
These self-driving trucks could be a part of the evolving face of the USPS
in the foreseeable future. In collaboration with the USPS, the San Diego-
based company TuSimple contracted with the mail handler to provide
robotic trucks for trial deliveries. This trial run occurred earlier this year
and involved semis completing five round trips between Dallas and
Phoenix distribution facilities.
The trips were more than 1,000 miles each way and were a
demonstration of autonomous highway technology. The trucks were
driven for at least 22 hours at a stretch as well as overnight. Because it
was just a trial run, a safety engineer and back-up driver were on hand
to supervise the test run.