Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Situational Awareness
Conflict Ground Conflict; Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Company Policy; Human Factors; Procedure
After we pushed off gate XX; our pushback crew stopped the aircraft at a slight angle toward gate XY; while we were facing the service road between the ramp and the gate XX Safety Zone. The nose of the aircraft was approximately 30 feet from the service road.  I cleared my left side; my FO (First Officer) cleared the right side; and we began our right turn to taxi to Runway XXR. Since we were very close to the service road; our nose and left wing needed to cross the service road during the right turn.  As I was looking into my turn to the right; I noticed motion from the left side of the aircraft using my peripheral vision.  When I turned my head to the left; I saw a fast moving (Company) tug towing baggage carts approaching from my left traveling east to west on the service road. The vehicle did not stop and continued on the road traveling between my left wing and nose. As the driver was passing by; it appeared that he did not see us. I immediately applied the brakes to prevent the tug from colliding with our aircraft. We came to a stop just short of the road as the vehicle passed by. The driver swerved left off the service road and pulled alongside another (Company) vehicle and began talking to the driver of the other vehicle.  I set the parking brake; called (Company) Operations on the radio to report the near-miss incident with tug. The tug remained stopped momentarily while the two drivers spoke to each other.  The second driver seemed to be telling the offending driver that he was blocking our aircraft and needed to move away.  Tug did a looping turn and departed the area.  If we had not stopped; we would have had a collision with the fast moving tug and baggage carts.
B737-700 flight crew reported a ground conflict with a tug during taxi.