• Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited (Hactl) is trialling autonomous electric tractors (AETs) to enhance apron operations, aiming to improve efficiency, reduce emissions, and address staffing shortages while maintaining high safety standards in a busy, high-value environment.
• Safety remains paramount: AETs are equipped with collision-prevention technologies, speed controls, and integrated sensors, while staff undergo extensive training to work safely alongside autonomous machinery. Human oversight remains central, with operators supervising and managing automated processes.
• Technology and sustainability underpin the initiative: a private 5G network ensures reliable connectivity for autonomous operations, while the switch to electric vehicles and optimized movements reduces emissions and ramp mileage, supporting both environmental and operational efficiency.
• Hactl sees autonomous apron operations as a gradual evolution, potentially encompassing additional vehicles like high loaders and steps, with autonomy serving as a key driver for efficiency, service quality, and Hong Kong’s status as a leading global cargo hub.

The apron is one of the most challenging environments for automation. Dozens of vehicles criss-cross the tarmac, ground staff work under tight schedules, and aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars sit just metres away. Yet the case for automation is clear. Autonomous electric tractors (AETs) can operate tirelessly, reduce emissions, and help overcome persistent staffing shortages. Crucially, they promise consistency in a part of the supply chain where delays ripple quickly through global logistics networks.

But introducing machines into such a high-risk, people-intensive space requires more than technical prowess. It demands rigorous safety protocols, investment in new infrastructure and a cultural shift among staff who must share the ramp with their robotic colleagues.

“The first and foremost consideration before we even started to think seriously about autonomous vehicles were the safety elements,” says Wilson Kwong, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited (Hactl), which has been trialling AETs in its terminal. “The ramp area of any airport is busy. People are working under pressure. There are many vehicles and high-value assets, such as aircraft, standing close by and clearly, what you don’t want is any possibility of an accident.”

That priority shaped how the tractors were specified. “They had to have a number of built-in safety systems, which would slow them down or stop them if they came unexpectedly close to other objects of any kind, whether human or otherwise,” Kwong explains. “Our AETs embody a number of different technologies which prevent them from collisions.”

Importantly, staff safety training has been ramped up alongside the new technology. “We’ve also spent a lot of time and effort training our staff to be extremely aware and alert to the potential added hazard of having autonomous vehicles in their vicinity,” he adds.

People and machines side by side

While automation is often framed as a threat to jobs, Kwong insists the opposite is true in cargo handling. “Our business and the airport is growing steadily, and therefore our requirement for manpower is also growing steadily,” he says. “It hasn’t affected our thinking about staffing or training because we still value our staff very highly and we maintain a rigorous and regular training regime.”

He points to Hactl’s long-standing investment in training. “We’ve recently rebuilt our training centre at considerable expense. Staff training is absolutely fundamental. We want the best people and we want them trained to be the best people.”

The future, however, will bring change. “The future of ramp operations may well be that eventually they’ll be entirely run by autonomous electric tractors,” Kwong says. “We may also find ourselves looking at other ramp vehicles and equipment such as high loaders and steps and how they might be used autonomously. That’s a long way in the future but we have to accept that it’s a possibility.”

For now, humans remain at the centre. “It’s very hard, no matter how much sophistication you introduce, to better the capabilities of a human being who really knows his or her job,” he says. “I think there’ll always be a role for human beings in all of our processes, if only overseeing what the machinery is doing.”

5G and sustainability

Behind the scenes, connectivity has proved vital. “The very nature of autonomous vehicles and similarly automated processes is that they are working remotely and that they will receive commands and provide feedback wirelessly via the internet,” Kwong explains. “It follows that all wireless communication must be 100 percent reliable at all times, in all locations.”

To achieve that, Hactl rolled out a private 5G network. “It increases our bandwidth at all locations so that we can have more equipment operating simultaneously without bandwidth issues,” he says. “Could we operate without it? Yes, but it would place an unacceptable burden on the existing infrastructure and that’s why we decided the time had come for a serious upgrade.”

There is also a green dividend. “It has hastened our switch to electric vehicles, replacing diesel vehicles,” says Kwong. “Certainly, at the point of use, electric vehicles produce much less pollution and are therefore an environmental improvement. Wherever a vehicle is autonomous and managed by a sophisticated programme, it’s quite likely that its movements will be more efficient than if controlled by human beings. That cuts down ramp mileage travelled, which is a considerable figure in a year, bearing in mind the volumes of cargo and aircraft we handle.”

Looking ahead

Asked how far autonomy might go, Kwong is cautious but optimistic. “It may be a necessity in the future that some, most or even all of our ramp operations are autonomous and automated,” he says. “It’s quite possible that in five years’ time a lot more of our ramp processes will be autonomous. It’s hard to say just how much progress we will make because we obviously also operate within a community and to some degree we can only go as fast as the rest of the community wants to go.”

But he is clear that innovation will remain central to maintaining Hong Kong’s place as the world’s busiest cargo hub. “Our experiment with autonomy is just another stage for us, another phase in our business development,” Kwong says. “It’s designed to make us more efficient, more effective, more successful, to offer better quality and scope of services to our customers. All of those things obviously feed into the future of Hong Kong.”