Just Eat UK under partner Starship Technologies has started a trial with four-legged delivery robots that can easily travel through city settings. The pilot program, which is just getting started in Milton Keynes and Bristol, and eventually during the pandemic, should help ten independent restaurants. This new collaborative pilot is designed to provide insight into the promise and perils of autonomous delivery systems in actual city environments.
Within Milton Keynes, two local independent restaurants—12th Street Burgers & Shakes and Moores Fish & Chips—are partaking in the trial. At the same time, Bristol has another eight participating restaurants on board – including Jolly Fryer, Chicken Mews and Bishopston Fish Bar. The robots are able to overcome difficult urban challenges such as stairs. Their intrinsically cool design, where each of their four legs ends in a small wheel, makes this possible.
Just Eat UK has teamed up with RIVR, the maker of these cool little robots. Together, this partnership represents an important step forward in the competitive and rapidly evolving world of autonomous deliveries. Marko Bjelonic, the chief executive of RIVR, celebrated this partnership as crucial. Its potential to revolutionize last mile delivery was touted by CEO Gilad Shai in a recent press statement.
“This is an important step in scaling autonomous delivery across European cities.” – Marko Bjelonic
Throughout the trial phase, the robots will be operated by staff members located near the participating restaurants. Each robot is clearly branded with an orange Just Eat box on its back, while pedestrian visibility is a key requirement of the robots. These robots are designed to succeed in actual cities. They test their capabilities and show us how consumers will embrace this exciting technology.
A similar pilot program was run last year in Switzerland, where nearly 1,000 autonomous deliveries were completed successfully. With great appreciation for their pioneering efforts, this experience will be a useful resource for Just Eat UK as they launch this new pilot. Not to mention the delivery drones currently being tested in Ireland. It signals an even broader trend towards automated delivery solutions across the industry.