Food delivery service Postmates is building delivery robots to reduce reliance on vehicles. This endeavor faces many of the same challenges as autonomous vehicles, such as safety and public perception.

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“In the seven years since its founding, Postmates has been on the forefront of the on-demand revolution, averaging 4 million deliveries each month in over 550 cities.”

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“Safety concerns have caused some cities to severely limit where sidewalk robots can operate. San Francisco—where Postmates is headquartered—now requires permits for start-ups to run their robots on public sidewalks, and even then, they're limited to areas with low foot traffic.”

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“Postmates has dispatched versions of its rovers on thousands of deliveries in cities like Los Angeles and Toronto. For the most part, customers wouldn’t know: the rovers pick up items from restaurants, drive them to Postmates cars, and leave the humans to do the final hand-off. The rovers are remotely supervised by a Postmates employee, who can intervene with a game controller when necessary.”

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