Redwood City opts for more robot deliveries

Ralston deemed the pilot program to test robot deliveries with Starship in recent months a success, with no major issues and many residents cheered by the sight of the robots ferrying food and grocery deliveries in the city. The fleet of 10 to 15 robots have been making up to 40 deliveries a day to businesses and residences through Starship’s partnership with food delivery services DoorDash and Postmates, according to a staff report.

“The community seems to have really embraced them, which is great,” Ralston said. “It’s a learning process and we want to keep evaluating it and take it slow.”

And they may have interested parties ready to take them up on the extension of the pilot program with two other companies — Palo Alto-based Robby Technologies and San Francisco-based Marble Robotics — stepping forward to introduce their robots to the City Council Nov. 13 when it unanimously approved the pilot modifications and extension to the end of 2018.

Addressing concerns

But some, like San Francisco resident Edward Hasbrouck, are hoping the city continues to look carefully at what it’s requiring of operators. Hasbrouck said his concern about a Starship robot’s location on the Redwood City Caltrain platform in August prompted other questions as to how a pedestrian might contact an operator immediately in case of emergency or mistakes such as going to the wrong address to make a delivery.

“How do [operators] know to take control? Is the robot going to know when it’s doing wrong?” he asked. “If it’s doing wrong, you need the public to alert you.”

Though Hasbrouck was pleased with the city’s modifications to the program, he wondered if officials could take even more steps to ensure companies respond to members of the public with concerns, advocating for officials to require companies employ someone available any time by phone to field questions. He added that having a mechanism to lodge complaints with the city could help track any issues related to the robots could prove to be a more objective way of tracking the robots than asking companies to report complaints themselves.

“You want to be able to get it out of here before it causes trouble,” he said. “You want to stop it in the moment and not have it escalate.”

Ralston said Starship has gone beyond the city’s requirement to ensure an operator who can respond immediately to stop a robot is available at all times by staffing them with handlers, who can answer questions and provide on-the-spot assistance should anything go awry. She added the requirement to have companies respond to and report complaints within 24 hours was reduced from 48 hours at Starship’s recommendation.

Safety as a priority

Though Henry Harris-Burland, Starship Technologies’ vice president of marketing, said in an email the company would eventually scale back the number of handlers accompanying robots through the city so one handler is monitoring several robots at once, he said safety is the company’s first priority, noting the robots have never caused injury to another party.

Harris-Burland said the robot testing in Redwood City — which has spread to Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, San Carlos, Walnut Creek, Concord, and Foster City — has helped the company make software and hardware improvements increasing safety and efficiency, including route maps that constantly update with the least congested route and an obstacle detection system that ensures the robot doesn’t bump into anything.

“The robot will always take the safest route from point A to point B — and most of the time it is not the quickest route,” he said in the email. “It will go 15 percent further to ensure it travels the safest way — which usually involves avoiding congested areas.”

Harris-Burland said anyone with concerns is invited to the company’s Redwood City office at 234 Marshall St. to learn more about the robots and ask any questions they might have. He added the robots have been positively received by residents and business owners so far, and DoorDash spokesman Eitan Bencuya confirmed his company continues to be excited about the potential for robot deliveries as one strategy among many to provide customers with even better delivery experiences.

Refining technology

Harris-Burland said the company has refined the robots’ technology to account for interactions between cars and pedestrians at city intersections they encountered for the first time in Redwood City, such as a car cutting across two lanes to turn right at a red light when pedestrians have the right of way. Though the robot could sense cars stopping when traffic lights change, the robot’s sensors have been honed to kick in during pedestrian crossings and can detect cars and moving obstacles more than 100 meters away, said Harris-Burland.

Though Ralston said the city hasn’t fully explored the robots’ ability to map city streets, she said officials have acknowledged they could play a role in identifying city streets, sidewalks and crosswalks in need of repair.

“They’re going to be hitting streets that we may not always be on,” she said.

Other uses

Derek Wolfgram, Redwood City Public Library director, is hoping the robots can play a role in bringing books directly to patrons’ homes as early as next year. He said the library has been working with Starship to work out the details of a pilot book delivery program in which residents fill out a webform indicating which books they want to borrow and when they will be at home to receive deliveries.

Since residents have voiced support for the instantaneous experience of downloading an e-book and reading it right away, Wolfgram is hoping using robots for book deliveries will catch on similarly. He acknowledged the robots could expand the library’s program for homebound residents and seniors who aren’t able to easily come to the library but also hoped the program could highlight the library’s increased use of technology to a broader audience.

“There is sort of a cool factor to robot delivery,” he said.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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