Collect&Go rolls out a driverless grocery cart in Leuven

In the centre of Leuven, Collect&Go has recently put something unusual on the road. A driverless, fully electric cart drives through regular traffic and delivers groceries to the customer's door, without a fixed route. It is a Belgian first: the first time an autonomous vehicle operates on public roads without a pre-mapped course. The online grocery service of Colruyt Group runs the project together with Telenet Business, which handles the remote control over 5G.

The cart drives up to 25 km/h and carries two customer orders at a time. The customer opens the compartment with a PIN code. After each trip, the vehicle returns to the Collect&Go pick-up point in Kessel-Lo to load new orders. The delivery fee stays the same as a home delivery with a driver: seven euros. The pilot runs in the 3000 postcode, excluding the pedestrian zones and the Leuven ring road.

5G as the operational backbone

The technical challenge isn't in the driving itself, but in the connection. Telenet provides a Mobile Private Network with network slicing: a protected slice of the mobile network reserved for this vehicle. Video feeds from several cameras, short and long range radar data, and the steering commands from the remote operator all pass over the same link. That only works if latency stays low and bandwidth is guaranteed.

There is a broader lesson for Belgian companies in that. 5G is often pitched as faster mobile data, but the real value sits in predictable connections for operational use cases. Think automated vehicles on a factory site, real-time quality control on a production line, or sensor readings across a logistics process. The Leuven pilot is a realistic test case for what could become standard in warehouses and urban distribution within a few years.

More data, more management insight

Autonomous delivery also changes the data picture around logistics. Where a driver today makes choices based on experience, in a driverless vehicle every decision runs through sensors, algorithms, and a remote operator. Each trip generates measurements on routes, obstacles, energy use, traffic pressure, and customer behaviour. That data is not only useful for fine-tuning the vehicle itself. It also gives visibility on the efficiency of the whole delivery model: how long a loading round takes, where time is lost, which customer zones are the easiest to serve.

For retailers and distributors, that opens a new layer of management insight. The last mile today is often a black box: a parcel leaves the depot, a parcel arrives, and what happens in between sits largely in the driver's head. A driverless vehicle forces organisations to make that flow explicit and digital. Companies that prepare their data for this shift will have a broader basis to decide on stock levels, delivery promises, and planning.

Government along for the ride

Putting an autonomous vehicle on public roads isn't a purely technical story. Collect&Go and Telenet work with the federal mobility department (FOD Mobiliteit), the Flemish Agency for Roads and Traffic (AWV), VIAS, and the Leuven city council. Leuven has positioned itself for years as a frontrunner in sustainable mobility, and is using this project to learn how autonomous transport fits into a busy city centre. For federal Mobility Minister Jean-Luc Crucke, the case confirms that autonomous mobility already requires clear regulatory frameworks today.

What this means for your business

For Belgian companies thinking about digitalising their logistics, the Collect&Go case is mainly a proof of concept. The technology is no longer limited to closed sites or fenced off test tracks. Companies that have their processes mapped clearly, keep the data flows around orders and transport clean, and can measure their operational decisions will benefit first when this kind of solution scales up. The question for the coming years isn't whether driverless delivery is coming, but how quickly your own processes will be ready for it.