The Roaming Robots: Hyde parks newest residents
‘Starship Robots’ are hitting the streets of LS6 this December where they will be carting
goods to residents, bringing a ‘sustainable’ side to delivery to your door!
From next month, Hyde Park and Headingley will be the new home to delivery robots taking to
the streets.
This comes as Starship Robots, the company running these little bots, is working in partnership
with UberEats to deliver your takeaways and food shops to your doors.
The robots are lightweight, have a raised flag for visibility, LED lights to attract attention, with
headlights and indicators. These self-driving bots are able to navigate themselves to customer
door, crossing roads, rolling down the street and dodging pedestrians.
When talking to residents about UberEats frustrations stem from the lack of drivers, slow
delivery time and often unexpected mishaps in their orders. These bots are said to fix this by
completely journey quickly and efficiently, by ‘completing journeys of up to two miles in under 30
minutes’
9 million deliveries have been completed already by Starship Robots worldwide.
This isn’t the first time the Leeds areas have seen these delivery robots. 12,000 households in
Adel, Leeds were serviced by Starship robots as part of a pilot programme in November 2022,
delivering goods from Co-operative stores.
However, residents expressed their concerns a few months in stating they didn’t know when
they’re robot delivery had arrived, the bots would cross the roads, blocking traffic at inconvenient
times, and they would sometimes be found upside down or lying sideways after falling off raised
pavements. These are all factors that could lead to slow deliveries and frustrations for residents.
Councillors Abdul Hannah and Jonathan Pryor took to social media talking about the bots saying
“We’re so pleased to be working on how new technologies can improve our neighbourhoods,
and to be at the forefront of new technologies here in LS6.”
Sharing their thoughts, they said ‘We’ll be keeping an eye on how things go, making sure the
service is safe, fair, and truly benefits our neighbourhoods, and we’ll post more information
about them as they roll out!’
However, speaking to a student they said ‘I personally don’t think they are reliable. There has
been a few times I’ve seen them toppled over. I also think they are putting people out of a job’
The Councillors said “Their introduction will mean fewer delivery vehicles on our roads, helping lower
both congestion and air pollution.”