Self-driving delivery vehicles will arrive on Toronto streets this year

After years of various proposals for different types of self-driving vehicles in Toronto, it looks like the futuristic tech is finally landing in the city, with some of the first autonomous cars set to pop up on local roads in the next few months.

Whether for the purposes of public transit, grocery delivery or private transportation, automated driving in its various forms is an undeniable game-changer for convenience's sake, regardless of any Black Mirror-esque turns one can imagine things taking.

The City of Toronto has been very much on board with the idea of this "exciting development in urban transportation," even developing a special tactical plan a few years back for how to take advantage of the invention as it develops.

So far, major companies like Tesla, Uber and Loblaws have been at the forefront of conceiving of and testing out how the vehicles may work in Canada's largest metropolis — along with, now, locally-founded global auto parts supplier Magna International Inc.

Magna has just this week been given the green light by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to start piloting its own self-driving delivery cars — which have three wheels and are closer to the size of cargo bikes — within the City of Toronto, which the company, headquartered in Aurora, will start this year.

The cars will be subject to strict controls, such as only travelling up to 32 km/h, only taking roads with posted limits of up to 40 km/h, and only driving straight or turning right.

All test vehicles will also be overseen by real humans in a separate car during this phase, which will only include short-range trips to drop off packages, and is meant to be more educational than anything else.

The driverless vehicles built by Magna are about as tall as the typical car, but closer in size to a cargo bike, meant for "last mile" delivery. Photo from Magna International.

A total of 20 of the machines will be dispatched in a large swath of the downtown core spanning from Eglinton Avenue to College Street, and Avenue Road to Parkside Drive (plus a portion of the Junction), to start.

A staff report states that such types of testing under the MTO's AV pilot are a "modest [and] important opportunity to increase our knowledge on the state of the technology," providing "a benchmark for future engagement of this kind."