Domino's launch autonomous pizza delivery robot vehicle
Pizza lovers in the US will soon be able to have their orders delivered by autonomous road-going robots.The world’s largest pizza company, Dominos has teamed up with self-driving delivery company Nuro to launch an autonomous pizza delivery service in Houston in the US.
From this week, customers who order their pizza online on certain days and times can choose to have their pizza delivered by Domino’s newest employee, the Nuro R2 robot. Nuro's R2 is the first completely autonomous, driverless on-road delivery vehicle that has been approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
So how exactly will an autonomous pizza delivery robot work? Well, customers will need to place their order and pay online from participating Domino's stores. Customers will then receive text message alerts updating them on the R2's location and will provide them with a unique PIN to retrieve their order from the robot once it arrives. Customers can also track the vehicle's driverless journey via GPS on the order confirmation page.
Once the R2 arrives, customers will be prompted to enter their PIN on the bot's touchscreen. The R2's doors will then open, revealing the customer's pizza order.
"We're excited to continue innovating the delivery experience for Domino's customers by testing autonomous delivery with Nuro in Houston," said Dennis Maloney, Domino's senior vice president and chief innovation officer. "There is still so much for our brand to learn about the autonomous delivery space. This program will allow us to better understand how customers respond to the deliveries, how they interact with the robot and how it affects store operations.
"The growing demand for great-tasting pizza creates the need for more deliveries, and we look forward to seeing how autonomous delivery can work along with Domino's existing delivery experts to better support the customers' needs."
The autonomous pizza delivery cars are yet to be announced to make their way down under but as the driverless technology evolves and more of us demand food to be delivered to our doors, this could soon become a reality.
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