By DEE-ANN DURBIN and MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Business Writers
DoorDash is adding restaurant reservations and robot deliveries to its menu in some U.S. markets. The San Francisco-based company, already the largest U.S. delivery provider, announced its expansion plans Tuesday, saying it wants to bring even more business to the merchants it works with. DoorDash said it will soon begin offering restaurant reservations in its app in New York and Miami. Other cities will follow later this year. The company also plans to begin offering deliveries in the Phoenix area with its own autonomous robot, called Dot. DoorDash said the robot, which is 4.5-feet tall, can travel up to 20 miles per hour on streets, sidewalks and driveways.
Delivery drones are supposed to be fast, yet, the long-promised technology has been slow to take off in the United States. More than six years after the Federal Aviation Administration approved the first commercial home deliveries with drones, the service still is confined to a handful of suburbs. That could soon change. The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator's line of sight. A handful of companies do that now, but they had to obtain waivers. Walmart, Amazon, DoorDash and the drone companies they work with say they are preparing to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households.
DoorDash says it's stepping up efforts to identify dangerous delivery drivers and remove them from its platform after a flood of complaints from cities. In a letter sent last month to DoorDash and other food delivery companies, Boston officials said they were seeing an increase in the unlawful and dangerous operation of motorcycles, mopeds and motorized scooters by delivery workers. San Francisco-based DoorDash said on Tuesday that it has created a dedicated point of contact for the Boston Police Department to make it faster and easier to process requests for drivers' records. If it's successful, the action may expand to other cities.
