Volkswagen, Telekom and Unikie wrap up two-year AutoLog driverless logistics trial at Port of Emden

Automated vehicle movements trialled in live port logistics

Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom, the Finnish technology company Unikie and the Bremen Institute for Production and Logistics at the University of Bremen (BIBA) have concluded the AutoLog innovation project after more than two years of testing automated vehicle movements under real-world logistics conditions at the Port of Emden in Germany. The project was funded by Germany's Federal Ministry of Transport (BMV) and aimed to examine the potential of automated vehicle movements for more efficient and sustainable port logistics, according to Volkswagen Group's media release of 28 October 2026. ¹³²

The test ground sits in a logistics area close to the port and combined parking areas, driving routes and a heavily used roundabout. These conditions let the partners examine a range of traffic situations, with a particular focus on how automated vehicles interact with manually driven traffic during ongoing logistics operations and on integrating the technology into existing workflows. Volkswagen's statement says the partners investigated the safe interaction between people and technology alongside standardised communication. ³⁴

Automotive World, reporting on the conclusion, notes that the work took the framework of ISO 23374 — the standard for automated valet parking — and applied it in a working port environment. The partners' stated aim was to assess how automated vehicles can be integrated into complex logistics settings, including interaction with people and other road users and coordination with established logistics processes. ¹³

How the marshalling system works

AutoLog combined several technology components into an integrated system for automated vehicle logistics. According to Volkswagen Group's release, the Unikie Marshalling Solution (UMS) provides overall control and coordination of the vehicles, which requires vehicle technology, environment perception, communications infrastructure and logistics software to work together reliably. A digital representation of the parking areas supports the planning and coordination of vehicle movements. ³

Communication between the system and the vehicles runs over Deutsche Telekom's public 5G network, which the release says was enhanced with additional capabilities to meet the application's requirements. The UMS itself operates on an edge cloud system, with data processed via a dedicated high-speed fibre-optic connection close to the cellular network to meet the technical demands of time-critical applications. Automotive World characterises this as placing time-critical control on shared mobile infrastructure. ³¹

Klaus Werner, Managing Director of Business Customers at Telekom Deutschland, said in the release that the combination of low-latency connectivity, edge infrastructure and intelligent vehicle control creates a technical foundation for scaling automated vehicle distribution from the end of the production line via rail and ship to the end customer. ³

What the partners said the trial demonstrated

Christian Vollmer, Board Member of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand responsible for Production and Logistics, said AutoLog demonstrates the potential of automated driving for the company's logistics and stressed the value of testing technologies where its logistics operations take place daily rather than only under laboratory conditions. He said the insights from Emden will be used in the continued development of the technology, according to Volkswagen Group's release. ³²

Vesa Kiviranta, Chief Business Officer for Automotive and Marshalling Solutions at Unikie, said the Emden trials demonstrated that automated vehicle movements can be tested in a demanding logistics environment with mixed traffic, and that the experience helps the company further develop the technology and assess its commercial readiness for other logistics environments. His statement, as carried by Volkswagen Group and reported by Automotive World, frames the outcome as a step towards assessing maturity rather than proof of deployment readiness. ³¹

Rail-wagon loading pilot at Audi Ingolstadt and next steps

The project also extended beyond the port. Through a collaboration between the AutoLog project and Audi's Ingolstadt site, the partners tested the automated loading of vehicles onto rail wagons — the precise positioning of vehicles as they are handed over to rail transport. Volkswagen Group describes this pilot as successful and as adding a further use case to the Emden experience, covering another stage of the vehicle logistics chain. ³²¹

With AutoLog concluded, the joint testing phase has ended. Volkswagen Group says the insights gained are intended to inform the further development of automated logistics processes and to serve as a basis for assessing additional applications, with the long-term prospect of making logistics workflows more flexible, safer and more sustainable and of opening new ways of organising vehicle transport within plant and terminal areas. ³⁴

Both the Volkswagen Group release and Automotive World's coverage position the reported results as inputs to further development; neither establishes a confirmed date for commercial deployment of automated vehicle logistics at Emden, Ingolstadt or any other Volkswagen Group site. No timelines, vehicle specifications or cost figures for a production application are stated in the partners' announcements. ³¹