Waymo, the self-driving vehicle unit of Google owner Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), is accelerating the development of its autonomous truck program. On Thursday, Waymo's Waymo Via trucking division and J.B. Hunt Transport Services (NASDAQ: JBHT) said in separate announcements that they are teaming up to test limited autonomy in live delivery situations. The two companies will run a series of human-supervised runs on the I-45 highway between the cities of Houston and Fort Worth in Texas. These will be conducted with J.B. Hunt trucks loaded with Waymo Via's self-driving systems. As we are not currently near 100% autonomous driving, a licensed human driver will be on board the vehicles, in addition to a software engineer. Image source: Waymo (Alphabet). In these trials, the Waymo Via-equipped trucks will harness Level 4 autonomous technology that is to be consistently monitored by Waymo officials. The trucks will be able to self-drive on the highway; presumably the human operator will take over on smaller roads. In its press release on the arrangement, J.B. Hunt said that it and the Alphabet unit "will be exploring how autonomous driving technology can be integrated across fleets and enhance safety and efficiency." The two companies have previously collaborated on the development of such technology. Meanwhile, Waymo Via wrote in an official company blog post that this new program should "help us define how we can continue working together long-term to advance the trucking industry through the deployment of autonomous driving technology." Waymo Via didn't hesitate to mention that it has been hauling freight for clients since 2018. On Thursday, both Alphabet share classes rose by slightly over 1%, eclipsing the S&P 500's 0.5% gain. J.B. Hunt, however, slipped by 0.8%. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet (C shares)When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Alphabet (C shares) wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of June 7, 2021 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares) and Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source