Autonomous Vehicles and Critical Infrastructure: Security Considerations for Texas Corridors

By: David Stone

June 2026

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The Texas AV Landscape

In May 2025, Aurora Innovation officially launched the nation’s first commercial driverless trucking service along the Interstate 45 corridor between Dallas and Houston.¹ Operating under Society of Automotive Engineers Level 4 autonomy, these heavy-duty Class 8 trucks regularly perform uncrewed customer hauls for major enterprise logistics partners. This operational milestone effectively shifted automated vehicle technology from an experimental pilot phase to an active component of the Texas freight ecosystem, with expanded logistics routes targeting El Paso and Phoenix.¹

As of late 2023, at least 15 autonomous vehicle companies were already actively testing on public roads across the state.² Long-term demand modeling indicates this landscape will continue to expand dramatically. By 2045, combined truck flows are projected to handle 1.7 billion tons of goods, which constitutes 60 percent of total freight tonnage moved across the Texas region.³ This transition represents a fundamental structural shift: autonomous fleets are no longer isolated vehicles, but are increasingly positioned to become the active physical and digital backbones of the domestic supply chain.

Texas Corridor Risk

The rapid integration of autonomous heavy freight exacerbates existing physical vulnerabilities across key Texas transportation corridors. Interstate 35 serves as the primary international artery for this network, spanning 588 miles within the state and accommodating 24 percent of Texas daily interstate truck miles driven.⁴ This corridor anchors the World Trade Bridge and the Colombia Solidarity Bridge in Laredo, processing 291.6 billion dollars in annual cross-border trade value.⁴ Freight tonnage on Interstate 35 is projected to swell from 57 million tons to 92 million tons, a 61 percent increase, intensifying structural density along the corridor.⁴

Research demonstrates that autonomous operations compound this strain through unique, highly concentrated wear patterns. Because autonomous driving systems operate with near-perfect lateral precision, they eliminate natural human wheel wander. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute determined that this hyper-focused loading channels multi-ton stress into narrow paths, precipitating a 22 percent reduction in flexible pavement service life due to top-down cracking and a 21 percent reduction for bottom-up cracking.⁵

Furthermore, localized risks multiply on legacy corridor bridges designed under historic building codes. Tight truck platooning configurations compress vehicular gap spacing to 30 or 40 feet, increasing live-load structural demands on older bridges. Reducing platoon truck spacing from 40 feet to 30 feet yields a 33 percent increase in high-priority vulnerable structures, creating operational risk if physical failures induce corridor closures.⁵

Texas Regulatory & Governance Gap

Despite these accelerating physical risks, the legal and regulatory framework governing autonomous systems remains severely fractured. The foundation of current Texas autonomous policy is Senate Bill 2205, enacted in 2017, which explicitly permits uncrewed operations while placing exclusive oversight with the Department of Public Safety.^2,6 Crucially, this statute contains a strict preemption clause that completely strips political subdivisions of the authority to regulate or franchise autonomous vehicle systems within their jurisdictions.^2,6

This centralized structure creates acute governance friction during localized operational crises. A critical analysis of recent urban deployment case studies, specifically Cruise robotaxis in Austin, reveals that private technology developers frequently engage in strategic obfuscation and defensive posturing when failures occur.² Opaque corporate information-sharing habits repeatedly strained municipal infrastructure, culminating in driverless fleets blocking public intersections, disrupting active emergency scenes, and causing near-misses with first responders.² Because local authorities lack regulatory leverage, they cannot compel automated systems to adapt.²

This operational disconnect unfolds within a broader national regulatory vacuum. The National Center for Transportation Cybersecurity and Resiliency highlighted that the United States lacks a singular, coordinated federal framework to govern transportation cybersecurity or data privacy.⁷ While 100 percent of surveyed state transportation agencies classify cyber threats as a major concern, 68 percent report limited cybersecurity knowledge, and 63 percent lack the technical manpower or resources to retain in-house experts to monitor emerging digital vulnerabilities.⁷ This capacity gap leaves transportation agencies poorly positioned to identify, respond to, or mitigate the cybersecurity risks that increasingly accompany large-scale autonomous vehicle deployment.

Texas-Specific Threat Context

The intersection of uncrewed commercial scaling, physical degradation, and depleted municipal cybersecurity resources creates an optimal target for hostile state-backed actors. Testimony delivered to the Texas House Select Committee on Securing Texas From Hostile Foreign Organizations confirmed that foreign adversaries view infrastructure networks as primary tactical targets.⁸ International security experts warned that adversaries might find their greatest advantage targeting vulnerable traffic management networks near military bases and ports, aiming to prevent military personnel from reporting for duty or critical shipments from reaching embarkation points.⁸

This threat model highlights a profound vulnerability inherent to automated fleets: any smart device that connects back to adversary nations for data storage or over-the-air software updates serves as a potential digital Trojan horse.⁸ Malicious actors retain the capacity to activate this remote access during a geopolitical crisis, effectively disabling and debilitating domestic logistics from within.⁸

This threat landscape is actively expanding along the Gulf Coast. The Port of Corpus Christi documented a 28 percent year-over-year spike in cyber-targeting incidents, placing it on track for the highest volume of intrusion attempts since data tracking began in 2020.⁸ Successful network breaches targeting automated container management systems or the industrial control units of port cranes could instantly bring entire corridor logistics to a complete halt.⁸ When heavy-duty automated trucking operates continuously to move critical commodities along these under-defended trade paths, a coordinated cyber-physical assault ceases to be a localized shipping hazard and instead becomes a systemic vulnerability capable of destabilizing national security.

Endnotes

1. Aurora Innovation, Inc., “Aurora Begins Commercial Driverless Trucking in Texas, Ushering in a New Era of Freight,” Business Wire, May 1, 2025.

2. Juliana Kasper, When Robotaxis Roamed: A Critical Analysis of Cross-Sector Information Sharing Practices in the Case of Cruise in Austin, Master’s Report (Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin, 2024).

3. Center for Transportation Research, Understanding the Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Long-Distance Passenger and Freight Travel in Texas: Final Report, Technical Report 0-7081-1 (Austin, TX: CTR, 2022).

4. Texas Department of Transportation, I-35 “From the Rio Grande to the Red River”, Corridor Presentation (Austin, TX: TxDOT, 2024).

5. Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Evaluate Potential Impacts, Benefits, Impediments, and Solutions of Automated Trucks and Truck Platooning on Texas Highway Infrastructure: Technical Report, Report 0-6984-R1 (College Station, TX: TTI, 2020).

6. Texas A&M Transportation Institute Policy Research Center, How Does Texas Law Change the Legal Landscape for Automated Vehicles?, Policy Brief PRC-2017-5 (College Station, TX: TTI, 2017).

7. National Center for Transportation Cybersecurity and Resiliency (TraCR), Policy Analysis and Guidance to Support Secure Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems, Final Report (Greenville, SC: TraCR, 2025).

8. Luca Cacciatore, “Specialists Push House Lawmakers to Address Cyber Attack Risks on State Infrastructure,” Texas Scorecard, October 16, 2024.