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August 20, 2024
Is Sidewalk Robot Delivery Ready To Roll?
Shake Shack has partnered with Uber Eats to introduce sidewalk robot delivery for the first time to customers in Los Angeles.
Select customers ordering Shake Shack on Uber Eats will receive a notification that their delivery may be brought to them via robot. Customers can then track the robot and use the Uber Eats app to retrieve their orders when the bot arrives.
The robots are provided by Serve Robotics, which was spun off from Uber in 2021 in an initial public offering. Serve, which has also partnered with 7-Eleven, currently has 100 robots serving 300 restaurants in Los Angeles but intends to have 2,000 robots across multiple markets as part of its Uber Eats partnership by the end of 2025. In January 2022, Serve said that its robots were capable of Level 4 autonomy, which means the vehicle can operate without a human.
Co-founder and CEO Ali Kashani told CNN Business that Serve’s robots are better equipped for cities than driverless cars. He said, “It reduces congestion, it reduces emissions, it reduces accidents and fatality, and it lowers the cost to merchants.”
Steph So, SVP of digital experience at Shake Shack, told Nation’s Restaurant News that earlier pilots have shown that robot delivery shortens delivery times, increases capacity, and reduces congestion of couriers in and out of the restaurant at peak times.
Food-delivery robots are more common on college campuses.
Grubhub recently partnered with robotics delivery provider Starship Technologies to bring food delivery robots to the University of South Carolina. Grub Hub told WTLX in Columbia, South Carolina, “Robots are a great fit for college campuses since those environments are notoriously difficult for cars to navigate due to one-way streets and areas on campus that don’t allow cars. Robots can get to hard-to-reach areas, which makes them a natural fit for campuses.”
Estonia-based robot delivery company Starship offers robot delivery across more than 50 U.S. college campuses, while Colombian-based competitor Kiwibot has reached over 30 campuses.
Starship said its all-electric robots reduce carbon footprint compared to gas-guzzling cars while also being cost-effective, including using less energy than human-delivery methods and offering a “no need to tip” benefit to customers. At the University of South Carolina, the fee is $3.49. Costs vary across college campuses.
Using a combination of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and sensors to navigate, the robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night, and operate in rain and snow. Each robot can carry up to 20 pounds — the equivalent of about three shopping bags of goods and moves at a speed of 3.7 mph. A Starship online survey of more than 7,000 college students across more than 20 U.S. campuses found that 93% of respondents said the robots are “convenient/helpful,” with 75% seeing the robots as “friendly/cute.”
In its initial public offering filing, Serve said it expects robots to eventually work alongside drones and autonomous vehicles to support last-mile food delivery. Drones and automated vehicles are faster and can travel farther, but robots are better able to access congested areas with limited parking and are less noisy. Serve wrote, “Delivery robots, aerial drones and AVs are each efficacious for deliveries with different attributes, and all three will work collaboratively to create the most efficient automated last mile delivery network.”
Discussion Questions
Do you see autonomous robots eventually becoming a common delivery method in urban settings?
Does it make sense that robots will complement rather than compete with drones and autonomous vehicles in supporting last-mile delivery?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Mark Ryski
Founder, CEO & Author, HeadCount Corporation
Georges Mirza
VP Product Management & Advisory, ComTask
Gene Detroyer
Professor, International Business, Guizhou University of Finance & Economics and University of Sanya, China.
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Delivery robots are part of the solution to fulfillment, but they are not the only solution. They also have a number of issues, including getting in the way of pedestrians and traffic causing safety concerns. This has created a patchwork of state laws around them, which has made universal standards impossible to apply. On top of this, some locations have accessibility issues which makes operating delivery robots challenging.
The last mile is the most expensive portion of the supply chain. Applying technology to eliminate labor and increase consistency and predictability through delivery robots, drones, and driverless vehicles is a sound long-term approach, each finding its suitable use case. The delivery robots are well-suited in dense urban settings and have been popular on college campuses, as referenced in the article. While mapping and sensors are improving, infrastructure problems such as cracks in sidewalks, potholes, and reduced visibility in inclement weather create real execution challenges for robots. However, their most significant risk may be theft and vandalism, which may limit where they can be deployed, consequently creating inequitable accessibility to such services.
Any city where pedestrians are in a hurry — New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC — would be disastrous for these robots. I don’t believe these will take off, and I don’t believe in drones, either.
Autonomous robots are unlikely to become mainstream, except perhaps as an efficient way to deliver the order to the driver right on site or very close by.
Autonomous robots could, however, soon be able to navigate complex urban environments and deliver packages directly to customers.
AI could also be used to assist these robots in navigating obstacles and ensuring delivery security. Eventually, we may even see autonomous robots assist in emergency situations or perform household chores.
Robots on sidewalks will have difficulty negotiating walking space with humans and non-robotic cars, trucks, and buses.
Since a year or so ago, 23 states have enacted laws regulating sidewalk delivery robots, which are sometimes called personal delivery devices (PDDs). Pedestrian yield requirements and speed limits vary from state to state, but some rules are common.
In some states, PDDs may operate on sidewalks, but they must be insured and monitored by a human operator. In Florida, PDDs can travel up to 15 miles per hour without human supervision.
Delivery robots have been tested on university campuses and urban areas for years. They should be able to scale and expand their rollout. We are more likely to see them on a broader rollout than drones and autonomous vehicles because they are less complicated and less risky. Still, drones and autonomous vehicles have a future with a broader use case. They extend delivery to areas where autonomous robots are limited or challenged.
Few of these ideas “make sense”…other than generating news coverage. They’re too small, too fragile and …yes… too cute. Perhaps some day, but by then my trembling fingers will have given up on blogging.
I wonder how many get vandalized…
Or stepped on (accidentally or intentionally), or backed over by a car…. when you’re out there alone on the streets and outsized by a poodle, everything is a danger.
This is cool stuff, but as most such initiatives, there will be a lengthy gestation curve before it becomes a real practice. Even simple and logical tools like IPads and mobile devices in the store, monitored by employees took years to become accepted. The rolling robots may even take longer because of their need to navigate streets and sidewalks. Imagine if they did take off and you have 5 of these headed to the same block in a city. Think of the pedestrian challenges and foot traffic issues- or more likely, deterioration of service and delivery times for the robots. The issue is further complicated with factors relevant to mobile devices in the store- battery availability, maintenance, storage space, operational efficiency, product theft, robot theft, and some new ones like vehicle collisions, vandalism and power outages. Can’t wait till they become mainstream though!
It won’t happen in two or three years, but it will happen. It is a massive improvement over automobile and bike delivery. In NYC, safety will improve tremendously relative to delivery bikers who ignore the rules of the road (and the sidewalk, for that matter). The delivery guys are truly dangerous for pedestrians and themselves.
The hotel I stay at in China uses robots to deliver room service. It is cute, efficient, and even interactive, yes, in English, too.
No.
I think it’s important to explore all options for delivery for environmental, cost, and efficiency reasons. That said, I do not believe that robot and drone deliveries will scale (at least not in major US cities) due to local, State, and Federal laws and regulations, safety concerns, and weather issues.
I remain skeptical that autonomous robots like this will become a major part of the delivery ecosystem. In limited or isolated locations, like college campuses for example, I could see it working, but just like with drone delivery, doing it at scale is problematic. That said, I never thought that I would ride in a completely autonomous taxi either, but I did just that in a Waymo and I found the experience so good I did it twice.
In the right environment, these devices make sense. College campuses, as mentioned in the article, seem perfect. Mostly pedestrian thoroughfares, potentially short trips. Makes sense.
It isn’t a question of “if” these can work, but more “where” they can work. Same thing for drones. A blanket “this will never work” for these types of devices just doesn’t cut it – there are cases where both of these types of delivery vehicles can and will work. The difficult part is figuring this out!
In many large urban areas, I sadly would expect vandalism and theft. I
It makes me think of the action movies where a van pulls up. Three guys jump out. They grab thier target from the sidewalk and stuff them in the van, then pull away.
It will take time for delivery robots, drones and autonomous vehicles to roll out. These innovations seem targeted to younger (Gen Z and Millennial), digital-first consumers who expect speed, convenience and continuous improvements on the status quo.
This is a solution looking for a practical problem, where one is still not available. Standardized accessibility, safety, weather, delivery quality, are all unsolved issues which keep operating these robots on a mass level not just challenging but also very expensive.
Autonomous robots will likely become a common delivery method in urban settings, but only if they prove to be cost-effective and reliable.
The idea of robots complementing drones and autonomous vehicles makes sense in theory, but in reality, I think the competition between these technologies will be fierce.
Each has its advantages, but balancing their use will be tricky. While robots are good for short distances, drones and autonomous vehicles can cover larger areas faster.
The challenge will be integrating these technologies smoothly without stepping on each other’s toes.