In ancient times people used birds to deliver mail, and it took much time to deliver it. Nowadays everyone uses online services for mail. But post offices still exist. They deliver things from online shopping. In some countries to get a package, it is necessary to go to the post office. In Poland, some of the packages are possible to deliver not far from home, thank the Poczkamat. But not every Poczkamat is located comfortably. What if I say that there is a service that could deliver a package right to your entrance. It is a Yandex delivery.
It is important to say that it works just in Moscow, and it is in the process of testing this service. However, Yandex uses robots to deliver packages from the post office. How it works? A person buys something at the online store with delivery to the post office, and he, she or it could use Yandex delivery to deliver their package to the entrance door. Worker at the post office put package into a robot and it rides through walking paths to the customer house. When it has arrived, at the smartphone of the customer a notification arrives. The next step is that customer go to the robot and open it’s luggage compartment and user could get his package.
It is really new step in delivery business, pakcge will come faster, more comfortable, and it is less probability that worker will lose a package during delivery.
But there are some problems with these robots, so they can not work correctly during winter, because of snow and cold weather, they just discharge in half an hour and someone has to charge it. Some of ways goes through the roads, and drivers could hit it because its hard to see it.
To sum up, it is really good technology that could bring new step in delivering business, but it has to be proved by companies, and government should take some steps to make more speed bumps next to pedestrian crosses, that will help to drivers, that probability of hitting such a robot will drop.
It’s amazing that such a device already exists. I hope they will enter foreign markets. I am still waiting for the Amazone drones to deliver my packages.
In cities I’d rather stick to Paczkomaty, they’re so close, and how will this robot get up the elevator 🙂
It sounds great for suburbs though
This is amazing, but in my opinion, this would only work in rich cities. I have a feeling that once these delivery robots launch, people will start to vandalize them ( a bit like the electronic scooters today).
This is a great idea, but how it will perform in real life. Many problems must be solved, risk of stealing goods that are transported in the cart. Also, I don’t believe that this robot will deliver packages faster than a human. It will work but in wealthy neighbourhoods with a low threat of robbery.
Amazing that someone came up with such a great idea! However, I think that in a normal life it would be unrealistic. I think that without a special infrastructure (e.g. special paths) it will be difficult to navigate this robot in big cities. I also wonder how the packages are delivered to blocks with elevators or stairs. I suppose that the packages in this device can be stolen more frequently, so that might not be a good solution. Thanks for an interesting article!
Not a novelty in cyber business industry. Even in rich cities like San-Francisco delivery robots after some time were not welcomed and annoyed every sane person there. But maybe Yandex will be successful in that, we will see.
Amazing idea, but I think that the biggest problem for implementing such delivery service is people behaviour. on the internet there is already a big number of videos where people are disrupting robots work. Also in poor cities there is a threat of robbery. Stoping such robot is as easy as taking candy from a baby, and as for lock such weapon like crowbar would easily open the lock. Although after improvement I think that disadventages could go away
In theory – great innovation. In practice, I can see a lot of flaws. First of all, the efficiency – how many packages and mail can one robot take and deliver in one go, before needing to recharge? I doubt it could surpass a delivery person in a van, who does not need to take breaks as often and can load more packages. Another thing – security. Are they trying to tell us, no one is going to just steal it off the street?? How secure is its software?
Also, I’ve seen a lot of videos with those things just being stuck somewhere, because they didn’t know how to overcome the obstacles, so how fast would this delivery actually be? I can’t imagine my package, stuck somewhere in the robot because it can’t get on a curb. I think it would work better in closed areas, like private, gated communities, or on university campuses.