UK's Robot Delivery Service: A Glimpse into the Future of Urban Logistics

Driving down an endless string of identical roundabouts in the dead heat with hardly a human in sight, you see robots roving around on grassy pavements, whizzing past obstacles to hurriedly reach their final destination. This isn’t a scene from a Philip K Dick novel, however, but an average Thursday in Milton Keynes.

The robots aren’t a new arrival to the Buckinghamshire city, the UK’s largest new town and a longtime marvel for city planning enthusiasts fascinated by its American-influenced layout and postwar history. They’ve roamed its streets since 2018 – and could soon be coming to a town or city near you.

The short six-wheelers have already been let loose in Wakefield, Leeds and, courtesy of the food delivery firm Just Eat, in Bristol. With murmurs that the government will approve delivery robots for traversal across our pavements nationwide under wider new laws on micromobility vehicles, they could soon become a more familiar sight across the country.

Are the robots, designed and operated by the autonomous delivery firm Starship Technologies, and used to cart Co-op orders around the city, popular in Milton Keynes? “It’s a wonderful experience,” says Amrita Singh. The 46-year-old, who works in project management, has seen them “all over the place”, including whizzing around in her local park, and often uses them. “It has proved to be very useful for me, particularly when my husband travels for work and I’m alone with the kids,” she says.

To put the robots to the test, we observed a delivery made to Singh’s property a short distance away from her local Co-op. After making an online order, items were placed inside a Starship robot adorned with a flagpole. It shot off and I tried to keep pace with it. The journey, according to Google Maps, should take seven minutes by foot: the robot sped ahead of me, despite my brisk walking in top-notch trainers. Matters weren’t helped by the blistering 34C heat, my visit taking place on the hottest day of the year so far.

My saving grace was the robot’s tendency to stop and readjust for obstacles, sensed using a combination of radars, cameras, sensors and AI. It carefully ventured through crossings and dodged oncoming pedestrians, including a mum with a pram and two children. It dutifully waited as they passed by before continuing on at a speed of about 4 miles an hour (6.5kph). It arrived at its destination in five minutes, quicker than making the journey by foot but a little longer than the three minutes a bicycle ride would have taken.

Taking her shopping from the Starship robot outside her home, Singh says: “It’s a very good gadget for people who are not able to go out of the house due to illness or because of the kids.”

However, disability and pedestrian safety charities have cast caution. In 2019, the University of Pittsburgh paused testing of the Starship robots after a doctoral student who uses a wheelchair said she was “trapped” by one when it blocked her from reaching the pavement via an accessible ramp. Catherine Woodhead, the chief executive of Living Streets, says the robots are “causing chaos for pedestrians despite having no clear laws for their use”, and calls them “dangerous” for older, disabled, blind or partly sighted people, and parents with buggies. “Pavements are for people,” she says.

Starship’s head of public affairs, Lisa Johnson, previously told the BBC the robots “recognise” mobility devices such as wheelchairs or scooters and would “get out of the way”. If this wasn’t possible, she said “human backup” would be alerted and move the robot remotely.

While Singh’s delivery went smoothly, there was some difficulty sending the robot back on its way to the Co-op. After she took out the shopping, the app didn’t register that the order was complete, so it remained outside her home. In an attempt to trigger a return journey, I pushed the relatively light robot (38kg) into the driveway, but it remained stubbornly stationary. As a car approached, I hurriedly pushed it out of the way on to the pavement and gave up. A customer service agent said an error had occurred, and the robot would be seen to.

Despite the teething issues, Singh is a fan. In fact, when the robots first came to Milton Keynes, she was “amazed”, she says, and sent photos of them to family in her native India.

George Domnar, 38, was equally impressed by the robots after moving to Milton Keynes from London in 2018. At the time, the housebuilder posted a picture of them on Facebook with the caption: “Welcome to the city of the future: Milton Keynes.” He says he used the robots a lot during the Covid lockdowns – but now opts to go shopping himself to get his steps in.

He says his sons, seven and one, “love the robots” and often get excited when they see them. His toddler, Liam, chased after one as it whizzed past him. Domnar does not think they would thrive in London, however. “It’s too crowded. The streets here are wide like they are in America,” he says. Vandalism in a less genteel setting is also a concern. “I think they will be damaged all the time. People will do it for fun because, sadly, it’s human nature.”

But the Starship robots aren’t immune to abuse in Milton Keynes. “They’re really good when the kids aren’t beating them up and chucking them in rivers,” says Stacey Cordes. The 38-year-old, who works in a department store, says they “work really well for people not as privileged as me who can’t drive around or walk two minutes to the shop”.

She uses them on occasions when “Mother Nature turns up” and she is short of “female products”, and says the robots usually arrive on time – though on one occasion they parked on the grass opposite her house.

But she implores people, especially as the roving robots become more widespread, to treat them with respect. “The more people look after them, the more people can use them,” she says.