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With its pending purchase of the Whole Foods grocery chain, Amazon.com will become a major shipper for fresh produce, a transport market that has always been difficult and is now getting even more challenging.

When Amazon.com’s $13.7 billion bid to buy Whole Foods was announced, John Mackey, the grocer’s CEO, addressed employees, gushing about Amazon’s technological innovation.

While it’s no secret that more and more people are shopping online, less obvious is understanding consumers’ buying habits and patterns — which has great relevance for the trucking industry.

While it’s no secret that more and more people are shopping online, less obvious is understanding consumers’ buying habits and patterns — which has great relevance for the trucking industry.

Technological advances are hitting the industry like a giant wave, Paul Dittmann, executive director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee, said.

Three decades ago, an experimental Mercedes-Benz van managed to steer, brake and accelerate on its own. But after the technology was refined enough to put an S-Class sedan through its paces on a highway around Paris in 1994, it was largely set aside as commercially unviable.