WHY IS A CITY LIKE BALTIMORE WHICH HARMS PUBLIC HEALTH BUILDING BIKE LANES?
This is why------these bikes lanes are not being built for public transportation----AKA ---BIKING-----they are being built as access to driverless delivery vehicles--------so, sorry, no BIKES----no SCOOTERS-----no CARS------no PUBLIC BUSES in any of these US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. The only transit will be CORPORATE VEHICLES either moving workers or moving materials.
When we look at this picture and see ONE driverless vehicle it looks HARMLESS. What is happening is that a CURB SPACE once for residential parking has now been designated as PRIVATE CURB SPACE which will expand as more and more and more competing corporations are allowed SPACE.
REAL BIKE enthusiasts KNOW these bike lanes are not about PUBLIC HEALTH or PUBLIC TRANSIT.
Refraction AI's REV-1 is about the size of a cyclist and drives at 10-12 mph, with 16 cubic feet of cargo space.
Refraction AI
If Matt Johnson-Roberson ever wondered why so many autonomous vehicle developers do their testing in Arizona, he got a fuller understanding last winter, riding around Michigan on a tandem tricycle. Sitting side by side and bundled up to ward off the cold, he and his University of Michigan colleague Ram Vasudevan pedaled to keep up with their robot, which was plying the streets of Ann Arbor on its own. One handled the steering while the other worked the laptop that oversaw the REV-1, the autonomous vehicle they created to mimic human bike messengers.
Alex Davies covers autonomous vehicles and other transportation machines for WIRED.
Johnson-Roberson and Vasudevan, who jointly direct the University of Michigan and Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles, cofounded Refraction AI, the latest self-driving outfit to announce plans to change the way people and their things move about the planet. While a juggernaut like Waymo can take on everything from robotaxis to trucking, this 11-person startup is focused on the local food-delivery market. “Trying everything would be a death sentence,” Johnson-Roberson says.He has been making robots since 2003, when, as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon, he worked on the first Darpa Grand Challenge, a seminal event in the self-driving space. Sixteen years on, with self-driving vehicles still struggling to enter commercial service, he’s eager to see robots have a real role in the world, beyond the Roomba that vacuums his house. “It feels like a bummer that we don’t have anything,” he says.
So Refraction, which came out of stealth mode last week, will avoid the hard parts of driving by acting not like a car, but like a bicycle. The three-wheeled REV-1 is 4 feet tall and 32 inches wide, about the profile of an adult on a bike. It uses bike lanes where available (which should be most of the dense urban areas Refraction has in mind) and hugs the shoulder everywhere else. That confers a few advantages. At just 100 pounds (not counting cargo) and driving at 10 to 12 mph, it can stop in about 5 feet, reducing the need to spot obstacles hundreds of feet ahead and mitigating the damage of any crash. (A prototype hit Johnson-Roberson a few times in his lab, and he walked away unharmed.) That lets the REV-1 get around with a relatively modest and inexpensive sensor suite. It has a pair of solid-state lidar scanners but relies more heavily on readily available radar and cameras than many bigger AVs. It also uses ultrasonic sensors (the ones that beep when you’re about to back your car into a lamp post), whose limited range isn’t a problem here.Keeping the REV-1 to low speeds and out of the way of cars should help Refraction move to market. It’s now working with two Ann Arbor restaurants, making deliveries to the startup’s employees and hoping to expand to the general public in the coming months. To make that happen, Johnson-Roberson and Vasudevan have a teleoperation setup that lets them control the vehicle remotely, using a system designed for a racing videogame. When one of their five REV-1s encounters an unprotected left turn, someone at the office will take over and handle it manually (the vehicle can also make three right turns to avoid the left).
Same goes for zebra crossings, where pedestrians have the right of way and there’s no light to control traffic. These are complex situations, and Refraction’s cofounders don’t want to take the time to solve them completely before getting to work. “It feels years off,” Johnson-Roberson says. After all, reports have said that Waymo, which has been at this tech longer than anyone, still has trouble with unprotected lefts, while Cruise boasted with a May video of its cars handling the turns.Like its tech, Refraction’s business plan is streamlined. It’s starting with food deliveries, sticking to dense urban areas, and running routes between .5 and 2.5 miles. This is where the inexpensive sensor suite really helps: The REV-1, which is made mostly of fiberglass and uses an ebike motor for power, costs $4,500 to build, and its designers think they can get it down to $3,500. Johnson-Roberson figures that if Refraction can make four to six deliveries a day, each between $35 and $40, while taking a 10 to 15 percent commission from the restaurant, it can pay off the cost of a vehicle in a few months. Deliveries will be free for customers, to help them get over the fact that they’ll have to walk to the curb and punch a code into the REV-1’s screen to get their grub. From there, Refraction might move into pharmacy delivery, toting Advil and toilet paper.
Refraction’s move into this niche—local food delivery within bikeable areas—is just the latest example of how the self-driving industry has expanded in recent years. Making a robot that can safely do all the driving, even in a limited area, has proven harder than backers hoped. After a decade of work and billions spent, even Waymo hasn’t taken the human safety operator out of its vehicles for its taxi service in Chandler, Arizona. So smaller operations have become savvier, singling out driving tasks they think will be easier to master in the short term, while bringing in revenue.
The flip side of that approach is that limiting ambition can also limit growth. Beyond urban downtowns, bike lanes are hardly common, pushing the REV-1 into the street. And even with a cheap vehicle, it may be hard to compete commercially with the inexpensive humans who already deliver food via services like Grubhub and Caviar. Plus, the autonomous delivery space is starting to look crowded: Nuro recently raised nearly $1 billion and struck a deal with Domino’s. Amazon and Postmates are just two of many companies working on sidewalk delivery bots, while Doordash is working with Cruise to move its food.Sticking to the bike lane, meanwhile, brings up a novel challenge for Johnson-Roberson and Vasudevan: Operating well enough to avoid turning Ann Arbor’s cyclists against them, and avoiding the sort of attacks that Waymo’s cars have suffered in Chandler. Both men are cyclists. They know how frustrating it is to have cars blocking precious biking real estate, and they want to avoid slowing traffic by cluttering the lane with a stopped or slow robot. “We’re trying to emulate what it is to be a cyclist,” Johnson-Roberson says. That means stamping out false sensor readings that can make the vehicle stop for no reason, while making sure it brakes when it should.
Along with his desire to see the robots on which he has long worked succeed, Johnson-Roberson has another motivation for moving quickly. Winter is coming, and he’d really like to get the REV-1 to the point where it can be safely monitored from the teleoperation setup in the office, so he can skip the freezing ride-along.
_____________________________________
Here are why Baltimore et al promoted SCOOTERS on sidewalks pretending it was all about public transit----those scooters are FUN--------but, the goal was always moving GLOBAL CORPORATIONS onto our public sidewalks. The reason these robotic vehicles need to be on our sidewalks and not on STREETS is because the transition of getting rid of all CARS----and moving only driverless VEHICLES has not be finished. As driverless vehicles take over the STREETS---and technology is made reliable---these smaller delivery robotic vehicles will not be needed.
DOMINO will segue into DRONE delivery but need a CURB PLATFORM from which to work. That is what TRANSPORTATION policy MOVING FORWARD will look like all called 'SUSTAINABLE AND GREEN'. This PLASTIC VEHICLE filled with rare earth minerals with technology factories being the worst in world history TOXIC POLLUTERS------there is nothing 99% WE THE PEOPLE SUSTAINABLE or GREEN about this.
This is not a DOMINO'S vehicle only ----every pizza corporation will now be allowed to put their own corporate driverless vehicle on our sidewalks. Then think beyond PIZZA=====EVERY corporation delivering anything will now have access to our SIDEWALKS and BIKE TRAILS.
Domino's launches world's first driverless pizza delivery vehicles
Marcus Fairs | 1 April 2015
UK pizza chain Domino's has launched the world's first fleet of driverless delivery vehicles (+ movie).
Starting today, pizzas ordered by UK customers via Domino's website and mobile app will be served by the two-wheeled vehicles, which are called Domi-No-Drivers.
Equipped with heated compartments, the autonomous scooters are able to carry four times as much pizza as traditional pizza delivery bikes ridden by humans.
"Whilst driverless vehicles once sounded like science fiction, it's now within our grasp," said Domino’s Pizza UK marketing director Simon Wallis. "Harnessing this innovation for pizza delivery opens up a new world of opportunities for us."
The vehicles navigate via GPS technology and feature an onboard Pizza Interface (PI) that calculates the fastest route to the customer.
While in motion, a proprietary system called HUNGAR (Hunger Detection And Ranging) identifies potential obstacles and other road users, allowing the vehicle to flash messages of apology via an LED screen mounted at the front. Messages include "Sorry", "Apologies" and "What am I like?"
When it reaches its destination, the Domi-No-Driver automatically sends the customer a unique passcode that allows him or her to unlock the correct pizza compartment on the vehicle.
"Due to its patented driverless technology, the vehicle is able to carry 400 per cent more pizza thanks to 100 per cent less driver," said the company in a statement.
Several companies are exploring driverless delivery systems. Both Amazon and Google have experimented with drones to transport parcels and supplies while in 2013, Australian company Flirtey claimed to have launched the first-ever drone book-delivery service.
However Domino's fleet of self-driving pizza bikes is thought to be the first use of autonomous road vehicles by a mainstream brand.
"Working with the latest technology helps to ensure our customers have the best possible experience," said Wallis. "We're really excited to bring these amazing vehicles to streets across the UK."
The Domi-No-Driver service is available to UK pizza-buyers from today, April 1.
________________________________________
Here in FAKE NEWS MEDIA outlet CITY LAB pretending and selling the idea that these BIKES LANES were about public health---public transit----giving our 99% WE THE PEOPLE more CHOICES------and look those cars parked on the other side of this BIKE LANE-----those parking spaces will soon DISAPPEAR ----lots of families, people living in those ROW HOUSES----thinking they have choices in transportation.
Think about how all this global corporate capture of SIDEWALKS, CURBS, STREETS----the ending of public transit and AMERICAN WITH DISABILITIES vehicles will effect our disabled, our seniors-------and how they move around.
There is no WAR between populist groups----neither those not wanting these paths for BIKES nor those wanting them for BIKES----will WIN-----they are both LOSERS.
Baltimore Battles Its Bike Lanes Jul 12, 2017
What happens when city residents go to war against cycling infrastructure?
At first, cycling advocates in Baltimore were ecstatic. After many years of lagging well behind other towns, in recent months the Maryland city made big strides to grow its bicycle infrastructure: It debuted a bike share program, a trio of protected cycle tracks, and a larger network of 122 miles of bike lanes by the end of 2016.
Then things got ugly. Residents living near the cycle tracks pushed back, raising questions over lost parking spaces and whether driving lanes were being narrowed at the expense of cars. This spring, opposition quickly grew around a track being constructed on a half-mile, eight-block stretch of Potomac Street, a narrow residential street in Canton, a waterfront neighborhood of tidy renovated rowhouses. The city’s new mayor, Catherine Pugh, announced that the bike lane would be ripped out, triggering a two-month legal battle.
That struggle ended in June with what appears to be a first in bike-infrastructure advocacy lore: A judge issued a restraining order to halt the demolition of the protected bike lane.
“Our main focus was to make sure a two-way, protected bike lane was retained and whatever solution the city came up with didn’t sacrifice safe cycling infrastructure for parking,” says Liz Cornish, executive director of Bikemore, the local advocacy group that sued Baltimore city in June to prevent the demolition.
The restraining order is part of an emotional summer for the city’s cycling community. (This month, a well-known rider and bike shop worker was killed after being rear-ended by a car.) But there’s a larger question that goes beyond the specific Baltimore case and addresses the anxieties that cycling advocates in several cities across the U.S. have been facing recently as more cities ramp up bike lanes, often over the objections of drivers and residents: Once you build them, can you keep them?
Cities elsewhere in the U.S. have experienced similar battles. In Pittsburgh, Mayor Bill Peduto is facing a “bikelash” from aggrieved motorists and business owners who are unhappy with the city’s bike-lane building boom. Protected bike lanes in New York City were menaced by a group of residents that sued the city to remove the Prospect Park West lanes; last September, plaintiffs dropped their lawsuit. Other protected lanes have been removed in Northwest Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, and Boise, Idaho. But in each of those cases, the lanes were temporary pilot projects to judge their efficacy. Even in Boulder, Colorado, where a protected bike lane was removed after only 11 weeks, the lane was originally only planned as a one-year pilot.
“By removing a lane of parking, you have residents who have to cross two lanes of traffic—a travel lane and a bike lane—to get to their homes.”Protected bike lanes that are carved out of existing streets—often set off from traffic by flexposts, parking lanes, or other barriers—can find themselves under fire because they’re perceived to be taking up space at the expense of cars, or they make it more dangerous for cars and other vehicles to navigate already-narrow roads. A common criticism of protected bike lanes that hug curbs is that parking either has to be reduced or removed entirely to accommodate a lane. Drivers in Chicago complained enough about two protected bike lanes on Independence Boulevard and Marshall Boulevard that eventually both the lanes were downgraded to buffered bike lanes instead of ones situated next to curbs and set off by flexposts.
“The design of the lanes was fine. It was an issue where people were kind of broadsided by it,” says John Greenfield, editor of Streetsblog Chicago and transportation columnist for the Chicago Reader. “People were getting ticketed for parking in the wrong spaces and people didn’t like parking next to moving traffic on busy roads.”
Street fight: Baltimore’s Potomac Street cycle track. Residents lobbied to have the protected lane removed. (Bikemore)In Canton, residents had voiced concerns in an online petition about the loss of parking spaces. But they also introduced a novel angle, arguing that further narrowing of Potomac Street—reducing it from two traffic lanes to one—would run afoul of the International Fire Code, which mandates 20 feet of unobstructed street width to make room for full-size firetrucks.
One vocal group, Canton Neighbors for a Better Potomac Street Bike Lane, says that while it’s in favor of a bike lane, it would prefer a different design, one that doesn’t accommodate a cycle track. “By removing a lane of parking, you have residents who have to cross two lanes of traffic—a travel lane and a bike lane—to get to their homes,” says group spokesperson Steve Bloom. “Folks are not opposed to the bike lane at all. But the cycle track design that Bikemore has advocated for is indicated for a high-stress, high-speed street for traffic traveling greater than 35 miles per hour. … That doesn’t characterize Potomac Street.”
Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter.The best way to follow issues you care about.In response to the criticism, Mayor Pugh first announced that the new cycle track on Potomac would be redesigned as a buffered bike lane; then she said the city would tear out the nearly-completed cycle track entirely, undoing about $100,000 of expenses in a multi-year, $775,000 phased project that would also include stormwater management improvements a year or two after the cycle track was fully installed. That’s when Bikemore sued the city. On June 9, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the demolition slated for June 12, pending a hearing.
On June 27, the day before the hearing, the legal saga came to a close. Bikemore and the city entered a settlement agreement, preserving the cycle track currently on Potomac Street as a modified street plan is formulated by the city and presented to the neighborhood for public comment before any final construction begins.
The exact terms of the settlement are confidential. In a statement, Mayor Pugh said she is “anxious to have further discussions with the residents of Potomac Street to ensure their input is considered as we move forward,” and that’ll be the first step after the city finalizes a modified bike lane plan for Potomac Street. In August, a public comment period for local residents will last two weeks, and then final construction of a permanent, protected bike lane on Potomac Street will commence.
“What we have agreed on with the city is that the bike lane as it is will not at any time be demolished, which is one of the main things we were fighting by filing the suit,” says Mark Edelson, a Canton resident and attorney who represented Bikemore in court. “We felt that if it were demolished, it would be regressive for the city.”
It also would have been extraordinary. “The Potomac Street case would have been unique,” says Michael Andersen, staff writer for the nonprofit cycling advocacy group PeopleForBikes. “The mayor’s attempted ‘compromise’ plan would have both re-allocated road space to cars and removed the physical protection.”
That judgment certainly hasn’t ended the citywide argument over bike lanes, as this dueling exchange of op-eds in the Baltimore Sun, from the driver and the cyclist perspectives, demonstrates. Threats to demolish existing lanes are ongoing: In the city’s affluent northern enclave of Roland Park, where another cycle track has bitterly divided residents, the Roland Park Civic League is now trying to convince city officials to remove it and restore curb-side parking.
Tensions remain high on Potomac Street, too, despite the settlement. Earlier this month, cyclists reported that several flexposts along the track had been ripped out, presumably by residents. Bikemore’s Cornish, meanwhile, counsels patience. “In the short term,” she says, “as we’re trying to change behavior, that might mean some people aren’t 100 percent satisfied with the outcome.”
____________________________________
Where are these DISABLED vehicles going to operate with great big DOMINOS PIZZA delivery vehicles taking up all space on BIKE LANES? These lanes are not being built as an alternative to DISABLED losing those PUBLIC TRANSIT BUS vehicles.
MOVING FORWARD consolidates population groups like those with disabilities. So, a senior housing complex----a disabled housing complex -----a mental health housing complex may have these option on THAT CAMPUS ONLY.
Disabled and seniors with compromised motion problems having no access to PUBLIC MOBILITY VANS OR BUSES-------not able to access these BIKE LANES------will not be seen in PORT OF BALTIMORE------downtown, midtown, uptown ---or GREATER BALTIMORE.
These are all INDUSTRIAL ROBOTIC vehicle structures having goals of moving PRODUCTS AND MATERIALS for global corporations.
Driverless-vehicle options now include scooters
Self-driving scooter demonstrated at MIT complements autonomous golf carts and city cars.
Watch Video
Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office
November 7, 2016
At MIT’s 2016 Open House last spring, more than 100 visitors took rides on an autonomous mobility scooter in a trial of software designed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the National University of Singapore, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART).
The researchers had previously used the same sensor configuration and software in trials of autonomous cars and golf carts, so the new trial completes the demonstration of a comprehensive autonomous mobility system. A mobility-impaired user could, in principle, use a scooter to get down the hall and through the lobby of an apartment building, take a golf cart across the building’s parking lot, and pick up an autonomous car on the public roads.
The new trial establishes that the researchers’ control algorithms work indoors as well as out. “We were testing them in tighter spaces,” says Scott Pendleton, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a research fellow at SMART. “One of the spaces that we tested in was the Infinite Corridor of MIT, which is a very difficult localization problem, being a long corridor without very many distinctive features. You can lose your place along the corridor. But our algorithms proved to work very well in this new environment.”
The researchers’ system includes several layers of software: low-level control algorithms that enable a vehicle to respond immediately to changes in its environment, such as a pedestrian darting across its path; route-planning algorithms; localization algorithms that the vehicle uses to determine its location on a map; map-building algorithms that it uses to construct the map in the first place; a scheduling algorithm that allocates fleet resources; and an online booking system that allows users to schedule rides.
Uniformity
Using the same control algorithms for all types of vehicles — scooters, golf carts, and city cars — has several advantages. One is that it becomes much more practical to perform reliable analyses of the system’s overall performance.
“If you have a uniform system where all the algorithms are the same, the complexity is much lower than if you have a heterogeneous system where each vehicle does something different,” says Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and one of the project’s leaders. “That’s useful for verifying that this multilayer complexity is correct.”
Furthermore, with software uniformity, information that one vehicle acquires can easily be transferred to another. Before the scooter was shipped to MIT, for instance, it was tested in Singapore, where it used maps that had been created by the autonomous golf cart.
Similarly, says Marcelo Ang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at NUS who co-leads the project with Rus, in ongoing work the researchers are equipping their vehicles with machine-learning systems, so that interactions with the environment will improve the performance of their navigation and control algorithms. “Once you have a better driver, you can easily transplant that to another vehicle,” says Ang. “That’s the same across different platforms.”
Finally, software uniformity means that the scheduling algorithm has more flexibility in its allocation of system resources. If an autonomous golf cart isn’t available to take a user across a public park, a scooter could fill in; if a city car isn’t available for a short trip on back roads, a golf cart might be.
“I can see its usefulness in large indoor shopping malls and amusement parks to take [mobility-impaired] people from one spot to another,” says Dan Ding, an associate professor of rehabilitation science and technology at the University of Pittsburgh, about the system.
Changing perceptions
The scooter trial at MIT also demonstrated the ease with which the researchers could deploy their modular hardware and software system in a new context. “It’s extraordinary to me, because it’s a project that the team conducted in about two months,” Rus says. MIT’s Open House was at the end of April, and “the scooter didn’t exist on February 1st,” Rus says.
The researchers described the design of the scooter system and the results of the trial in a paper they presented last week at the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Joining Rus, Pendleton, and Ang on the paper are You Hong Eng, who leads the SMART autonomous-vehicle project, and four other researchers from both NUS and SMART.
The paper also reports the results of a short user survey that the researchers conducted during the trial. Before riding the scooter, users were asked how safe they considered autonomous vehicles to be, on a scale from one to five; after their rides, they were asked the same question again. Experience with the scooter brought the average safety score up, from 3.5 to 4.6.
___________________________________________
'Liz Cornish, executive director of the advocacy group Bikemore, said the Maryland Avenue lane, unlike other bike lanes that are the result of “more compromise,” is built to high-quality standards that “will make more people comfortable with riding a bike in Baltimore.”'
This is what all the BIKE LANES look like in our Baltimore communities. We have shouted against all this for several years as NOT PUBLIC INTEREST---not PUBLIC HEALTH----not ENVIRONMENTAL----not TRANSPORTATION CHOICES.
As usual---we were CORRECT. We give REAL INFORMATION while global banking 1% with FAKE NEWS MEDIA and FAKE left NGOs create myth-making and propaganda.
When our RURAL PUBLIC HEALTH agencies promote SCOOTERS on sidewalks as public interest---THIS is for whom they are working----
Kroger launches groundbreaking self-driving grocery delivery service in Arizona
Published: 08:04 EDT, 16 August 2018 | Updated: 12:08 EDT, 16 August 2018
Kroger's driverless grocery delivery vehicles are finally hitting the road.
The supermarket operator said it will start testing the self-driving cars on Thursday at a Fry's Food Store in Scottsdale, Arizona.
It's part of Kroger's ongoing partnership with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup founded two years ago by two engineers who worked on self-driving cars at Google.
Kroger's driverless grocery delivery vehicles are finally hitting the road. The firm said it will start testing the self-driving cars on Thursday at a Fry's Food Store in Scottsdale, Arizona
Customers can order groceries via Kroger's website or mobile app and select same-day or next-day delivery.
There's no minimum order amount, but they will have to pay a $5.95 delivery fee.
The first phase of the the test will use a fleet of Toyota Prius cars equipped with Nuro's self-driving technology.
Each self-driving car will also have a safety driver behind the wheel.
The safety driver can override the car's functionality in case of an emergency.
'Arizona is home to some of the most innovative autonomous vehicle testing,' Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson said in a statement.
'We're proud to contribute and turn our vision for local commerce into a real, accessible service that residents of Scottsdale can use immediately.
Customers order groceries via Kroger's website or mobile app and select same-day or next-day delivery. There's no minimum order amount, but they will have to pay a $5.95 delivery fee
Kroger has chosen a Phoenix suburb as the launching pad for delivering groceries to doorsteps using driverless cars. The first phase of the the test will use a fleet of Toyota Prius cars equipped with Nuro's self-driving technology
'Our goal is to save people time, while operating safely and learning how we can further improve the experience,' he added.
Arizona has become a hotbed of self-driving car testing, with Uber, Waymo, Lyft and others trialing prototypes there.
Kroger and rival Walmart each have teamed up with autonomous vehicle companies in a bid to lower the high-cost of 'last-mile' deliveries to customer doorsteps, as online retailer Amazon.com rolls out free Whole Foods delivery for subscribers to its Prime perks program.
Walmart and Google's self-driving car company Waymo are partnering to test a service that shuttles Phoenix shoppers to stores to collect online grocery orders.
WHAT IS THE NURO SELF-DRIVING VEHICLE?
Silicon Valley startup Nuro raised $92 million to create a working prototype of its 'R1' vehicle, which the company says will never seat a human inside.
The company has partnered with Kroger to test the vans for a delivery service.
The 'R1' van is shaped like a rounded, silver lunch box, and is is half the width and about two-thirds the length of a Toyota Corolla.
It will travel at a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour.
Kroger and Nuro will tell users when R1 leaves the store and give updates on its journey.
They also will provide a code to open the compartment containing their order.
Its skinny size gives it a 3 to 4-foot (90-120cm) 'buffer' so other vehicles and pedestrians can maneuver safely around it, according to Nuro.
The R1 is a 'Level Four' fully autonomous vehicle, meaning it does not require human instruction for most situations, relying instead on high-definition mapping.
It navigates the roads using self-driving sensors including cameras, radars, and a spinning 'lidar' unit on its roof.
Customers who take advantage of Kroger's driverless grocery delivery system will still have to walk to the curb outside their house to retrieve the groceries.
'Kroger wants to bring more customers the convenience of affordable grocery delivery,' said Kroger Chief Digital Officer Yael Cosset, who added that the test will also gauge consumer demand for the service.
Kroger will use a fleet or Toyota Prius cars for the first rounds of testing, but will use Nuro's R1 driverless delivery van, which has no seats, this autumn, the companies said.
Kroger and Nuro will tell users when R1 leaves the store and give updates on its journey. They also will provide a code to open the compartment containing their order
The 'R1' van is shaped like a rounded, silver lunch box, and is is half the width and about two-thirds the length of a Toyota Corolla.
Its skinny size gives it a 3 to 4-foot (90-120cm) 'buffer' so other vehicles and pedestrians can maneuver safely around it, according to Nuro.
'While we compete final certification and testing of the R1, the Prius will be delivering groceries and helping us improve the overall service,' a Nuro spokeswoman said.
For now, the self-driving vehicles are only available for delivery to addresses that are within the store's zip code of 85257, Kroger said.
This is why------these bikes lanes are not being built for public transportation----AKA ---BIKING-----they are being built as access to driverless delivery vehicles--------so, sorry, no BIKES----no SCOOTERS-----no CARS------no PUBLIC BUSES in any of these US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. The only transit will be CORPORATE VEHICLES either moving workers or moving materials.
When we look at this picture and see ONE driverless vehicle it looks HARMLESS. What is happening is that a CURB SPACE once for residential parking has now been designated as PRIVATE CURB SPACE which will expand as more and more and more competing corporations are allowed SPACE.
REAL BIKE enthusiasts KNOW these bike lanes are not about PUBLIC HEALTH or PUBLIC TRANSIT.
- Alex Davies
- transportation
- 07.17.19
- 08:00 am
Refraction AI's REV-1 is about the size of a cyclist and drives at 10-12 mph, with 16 cubic feet of cargo space.
Refraction AI
If Matt Johnson-Roberson ever wondered why so many autonomous vehicle developers do their testing in Arizona, he got a fuller understanding last winter, riding around Michigan on a tandem tricycle. Sitting side by side and bundled up to ward off the cold, he and his University of Michigan colleague Ram Vasudevan pedaled to keep up with their robot, which was plying the streets of Ann Arbor on its own. One handled the steering while the other worked the laptop that oversaw the REV-1, the autonomous vehicle they created to mimic human bike messengers.
Alex Davies covers autonomous vehicles and other transportation machines for WIRED.
Johnson-Roberson and Vasudevan, who jointly direct the University of Michigan and Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles, cofounded Refraction AI, the latest self-driving outfit to announce plans to change the way people and their things move about the planet. While a juggernaut like Waymo can take on everything from robotaxis to trucking, this 11-person startup is focused on the local food-delivery market. “Trying everything would be a death sentence,” Johnson-Roberson says.He has been making robots since 2003, when, as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon, he worked on the first Darpa Grand Challenge, a seminal event in the self-driving space. Sixteen years on, with self-driving vehicles still struggling to enter commercial service, he’s eager to see robots have a real role in the world, beyond the Roomba that vacuums his house. “It feels like a bummer that we don’t have anything,” he says.
So Refraction, which came out of stealth mode last week, will avoid the hard parts of driving by acting not like a car, but like a bicycle. The three-wheeled REV-1 is 4 feet tall and 32 inches wide, about the profile of an adult on a bike. It uses bike lanes where available (which should be most of the dense urban areas Refraction has in mind) and hugs the shoulder everywhere else. That confers a few advantages. At just 100 pounds (not counting cargo) and driving at 10 to 12 mph, it can stop in about 5 feet, reducing the need to spot obstacles hundreds of feet ahead and mitigating the damage of any crash. (A prototype hit Johnson-Roberson a few times in his lab, and he walked away unharmed.) That lets the REV-1 get around with a relatively modest and inexpensive sensor suite. It has a pair of solid-state lidar scanners but relies more heavily on readily available radar and cameras than many bigger AVs. It also uses ultrasonic sensors (the ones that beep when you’re about to back your car into a lamp post), whose limited range isn’t a problem here.Keeping the REV-1 to low speeds and out of the way of cars should help Refraction move to market. It’s now working with two Ann Arbor restaurants, making deliveries to the startup’s employees and hoping to expand to the general public in the coming months. To make that happen, Johnson-Roberson and Vasudevan have a teleoperation setup that lets them control the vehicle remotely, using a system designed for a racing videogame. When one of their five REV-1s encounters an unprotected left turn, someone at the office will take over and handle it manually (the vehicle can also make three right turns to avoid the left).
Same goes for zebra crossings, where pedestrians have the right of way and there’s no light to control traffic. These are complex situations, and Refraction’s cofounders don’t want to take the time to solve them completely before getting to work. “It feels years off,” Johnson-Roberson says. After all, reports have said that Waymo, which has been at this tech longer than anyone, still has trouble with unprotected lefts, while Cruise boasted with a May video of its cars handling the turns.Like its tech, Refraction’s business plan is streamlined. It’s starting with food deliveries, sticking to dense urban areas, and running routes between .5 and 2.5 miles. This is where the inexpensive sensor suite really helps: The REV-1, which is made mostly of fiberglass and uses an ebike motor for power, costs $4,500 to build, and its designers think they can get it down to $3,500. Johnson-Roberson figures that if Refraction can make four to six deliveries a day, each between $35 and $40, while taking a 10 to 15 percent commission from the restaurant, it can pay off the cost of a vehicle in a few months. Deliveries will be free for customers, to help them get over the fact that they’ll have to walk to the curb and punch a code into the REV-1’s screen to get their grub. From there, Refraction might move into pharmacy delivery, toting Advil and toilet paper.
Refraction’s move into this niche—local food delivery within bikeable areas—is just the latest example of how the self-driving industry has expanded in recent years. Making a robot that can safely do all the driving, even in a limited area, has proven harder than backers hoped. After a decade of work and billions spent, even Waymo hasn’t taken the human safety operator out of its vehicles for its taxi service in Chandler, Arizona. So smaller operations have become savvier, singling out driving tasks they think will be easier to master in the short term, while bringing in revenue.
The flip side of that approach is that limiting ambition can also limit growth. Beyond urban downtowns, bike lanes are hardly common, pushing the REV-1 into the street. And even with a cheap vehicle, it may be hard to compete commercially with the inexpensive humans who already deliver food via services like Grubhub and Caviar. Plus, the autonomous delivery space is starting to look crowded: Nuro recently raised nearly $1 billion and struck a deal with Domino’s. Amazon and Postmates are just two of many companies working on sidewalk delivery bots, while Doordash is working with Cruise to move its food.Sticking to the bike lane, meanwhile, brings up a novel challenge for Johnson-Roberson and Vasudevan: Operating well enough to avoid turning Ann Arbor’s cyclists against them, and avoiding the sort of attacks that Waymo’s cars have suffered in Chandler. Both men are cyclists. They know how frustrating it is to have cars blocking precious biking real estate, and they want to avoid slowing traffic by cluttering the lane with a stopped or slow robot. “We’re trying to emulate what it is to be a cyclist,” Johnson-Roberson says. That means stamping out false sensor readings that can make the vehicle stop for no reason, while making sure it brakes when it should.
Along with his desire to see the robots on which he has long worked succeed, Johnson-Roberson has another motivation for moving quickly. Winter is coming, and he’d really like to get the REV-1 to the point where it can be safely monitored from the teleoperation setup in the office, so he can skip the freezing ride-along.
_____________________________________
Here are why Baltimore et al promoted SCOOTERS on sidewalks pretending it was all about public transit----those scooters are FUN--------but, the goal was always moving GLOBAL CORPORATIONS onto our public sidewalks. The reason these robotic vehicles need to be on our sidewalks and not on STREETS is because the transition of getting rid of all CARS----and moving only driverless VEHICLES has not be finished. As driverless vehicles take over the STREETS---and technology is made reliable---these smaller delivery robotic vehicles will not be needed.
DOMINO will segue into DRONE delivery but need a CURB PLATFORM from which to work. That is what TRANSPORTATION policy MOVING FORWARD will look like all called 'SUSTAINABLE AND GREEN'. This PLASTIC VEHICLE filled with rare earth minerals with technology factories being the worst in world history TOXIC POLLUTERS------there is nothing 99% WE THE PEOPLE SUSTAINABLE or GREEN about this.
This is not a DOMINO'S vehicle only ----every pizza corporation will now be allowed to put their own corporate driverless vehicle on our sidewalks. Then think beyond PIZZA=====EVERY corporation delivering anything will now have access to our SIDEWALKS and BIKE TRAILS.
Domino's launches world's first driverless pizza delivery vehicles
Marcus Fairs | 1 April 2015
UK pizza chain Domino's has launched the world's first fleet of driverless delivery vehicles (+ movie).
Starting today, pizzas ordered by UK customers via Domino's website and mobile app will be served by the two-wheeled vehicles, which are called Domi-No-Drivers.
Equipped with heated compartments, the autonomous scooters are able to carry four times as much pizza as traditional pizza delivery bikes ridden by humans.
"Whilst driverless vehicles once sounded like science fiction, it's now within our grasp," said Domino’s Pizza UK marketing director Simon Wallis. "Harnessing this innovation for pizza delivery opens up a new world of opportunities for us."
The vehicles navigate via GPS technology and feature an onboard Pizza Interface (PI) that calculates the fastest route to the customer.
While in motion, a proprietary system called HUNGAR (Hunger Detection And Ranging) identifies potential obstacles and other road users, allowing the vehicle to flash messages of apology via an LED screen mounted at the front. Messages include "Sorry", "Apologies" and "What am I like?"
When it reaches its destination, the Domi-No-Driver automatically sends the customer a unique passcode that allows him or her to unlock the correct pizza compartment on the vehicle.
"Due to its patented driverless technology, the vehicle is able to carry 400 per cent more pizza thanks to 100 per cent less driver," said the company in a statement.
Several companies are exploring driverless delivery systems. Both Amazon and Google have experimented with drones to transport parcels and supplies while in 2013, Australian company Flirtey claimed to have launched the first-ever drone book-delivery service.
However Domino's fleet of self-driving pizza bikes is thought to be the first use of autonomous road vehicles by a mainstream brand.
"Working with the latest technology helps to ensure our customers have the best possible experience," said Wallis. "We're really excited to bring these amazing vehicles to streets across the UK."
The Domi-No-Driver service is available to UK pizza-buyers from today, April 1.
________________________________________
Here in FAKE NEWS MEDIA outlet CITY LAB pretending and selling the idea that these BIKES LANES were about public health---public transit----giving our 99% WE THE PEOPLE more CHOICES------and look those cars parked on the other side of this BIKE LANE-----those parking spaces will soon DISAPPEAR ----lots of families, people living in those ROW HOUSES----thinking they have choices in transportation.
Think about how all this global corporate capture of SIDEWALKS, CURBS, STREETS----the ending of public transit and AMERICAN WITH DISABILITIES vehicles will effect our disabled, our seniors-------and how they move around.
There is no WAR between populist groups----neither those not wanting these paths for BIKES nor those wanting them for BIKES----will WIN-----they are both LOSERS.
Baltimore Battles Its Bike Lanes Jul 12, 2017
What happens when city residents go to war against cycling infrastructure?
At first, cycling advocates in Baltimore were ecstatic. After many years of lagging well behind other towns, in recent months the Maryland city made big strides to grow its bicycle infrastructure: It debuted a bike share program, a trio of protected cycle tracks, and a larger network of 122 miles of bike lanes by the end of 2016.
Then things got ugly. Residents living near the cycle tracks pushed back, raising questions over lost parking spaces and whether driving lanes were being narrowed at the expense of cars. This spring, opposition quickly grew around a track being constructed on a half-mile, eight-block stretch of Potomac Street, a narrow residential street in Canton, a waterfront neighborhood of tidy renovated rowhouses. The city’s new mayor, Catherine Pugh, announced that the bike lane would be ripped out, triggering a two-month legal battle.
That struggle ended in June with what appears to be a first in bike-infrastructure advocacy lore: A judge issued a restraining order to halt the demolition of the protected bike lane.
“Our main focus was to make sure a two-way, protected bike lane was retained and whatever solution the city came up with didn’t sacrifice safe cycling infrastructure for parking,” says Liz Cornish, executive director of Bikemore, the local advocacy group that sued Baltimore city in June to prevent the demolition.
The restraining order is part of an emotional summer for the city’s cycling community. (This month, a well-known rider and bike shop worker was killed after being rear-ended by a car.) But there’s a larger question that goes beyond the specific Baltimore case and addresses the anxieties that cycling advocates in several cities across the U.S. have been facing recently as more cities ramp up bike lanes, often over the objections of drivers and residents: Once you build them, can you keep them?
Cities elsewhere in the U.S. have experienced similar battles. In Pittsburgh, Mayor Bill Peduto is facing a “bikelash” from aggrieved motorists and business owners who are unhappy with the city’s bike-lane building boom. Protected bike lanes in New York City were menaced by a group of residents that sued the city to remove the Prospect Park West lanes; last September, plaintiffs dropped their lawsuit. Other protected lanes have been removed in Northwest Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, and Boise, Idaho. But in each of those cases, the lanes were temporary pilot projects to judge their efficacy. Even in Boulder, Colorado, where a protected bike lane was removed after only 11 weeks, the lane was originally only planned as a one-year pilot.
“By removing a lane of parking, you have residents who have to cross two lanes of traffic—a travel lane and a bike lane—to get to their homes.”Protected bike lanes that are carved out of existing streets—often set off from traffic by flexposts, parking lanes, or other barriers—can find themselves under fire because they’re perceived to be taking up space at the expense of cars, or they make it more dangerous for cars and other vehicles to navigate already-narrow roads. A common criticism of protected bike lanes that hug curbs is that parking either has to be reduced or removed entirely to accommodate a lane. Drivers in Chicago complained enough about two protected bike lanes on Independence Boulevard and Marshall Boulevard that eventually both the lanes were downgraded to buffered bike lanes instead of ones situated next to curbs and set off by flexposts.
“The design of the lanes was fine. It was an issue where people were kind of broadsided by it,” says John Greenfield, editor of Streetsblog Chicago and transportation columnist for the Chicago Reader. “People were getting ticketed for parking in the wrong spaces and people didn’t like parking next to moving traffic on busy roads.”
Street fight: Baltimore’s Potomac Street cycle track. Residents lobbied to have the protected lane removed. (Bikemore)In Canton, residents had voiced concerns in an online petition about the loss of parking spaces. But they also introduced a novel angle, arguing that further narrowing of Potomac Street—reducing it from two traffic lanes to one—would run afoul of the International Fire Code, which mandates 20 feet of unobstructed street width to make room for full-size firetrucks.
One vocal group, Canton Neighbors for a Better Potomac Street Bike Lane, says that while it’s in favor of a bike lane, it would prefer a different design, one that doesn’t accommodate a cycle track. “By removing a lane of parking, you have residents who have to cross two lanes of traffic—a travel lane and a bike lane—to get to their homes,” says group spokesperson Steve Bloom. “Folks are not opposed to the bike lane at all. But the cycle track design that Bikemore has advocated for is indicated for a high-stress, high-speed street for traffic traveling greater than 35 miles per hour. … That doesn’t characterize Potomac Street.”
Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter.The best way to follow issues you care about.In response to the criticism, Mayor Pugh first announced that the new cycle track on Potomac would be redesigned as a buffered bike lane; then she said the city would tear out the nearly-completed cycle track entirely, undoing about $100,000 of expenses in a multi-year, $775,000 phased project that would also include stormwater management improvements a year or two after the cycle track was fully installed. That’s when Bikemore sued the city. On June 9, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the demolition slated for June 12, pending a hearing.
On June 27, the day before the hearing, the legal saga came to a close. Bikemore and the city entered a settlement agreement, preserving the cycle track currently on Potomac Street as a modified street plan is formulated by the city and presented to the neighborhood for public comment before any final construction begins.
The exact terms of the settlement are confidential. In a statement, Mayor Pugh said she is “anxious to have further discussions with the residents of Potomac Street to ensure their input is considered as we move forward,” and that’ll be the first step after the city finalizes a modified bike lane plan for Potomac Street. In August, a public comment period for local residents will last two weeks, and then final construction of a permanent, protected bike lane on Potomac Street will commence.
“What we have agreed on with the city is that the bike lane as it is will not at any time be demolished, which is one of the main things we were fighting by filing the suit,” says Mark Edelson, a Canton resident and attorney who represented Bikemore in court. “We felt that if it were demolished, it would be regressive for the city.”
It also would have been extraordinary. “The Potomac Street case would have been unique,” says Michael Andersen, staff writer for the nonprofit cycling advocacy group PeopleForBikes. “The mayor’s attempted ‘compromise’ plan would have both re-allocated road space to cars and removed the physical protection.”
That judgment certainly hasn’t ended the citywide argument over bike lanes, as this dueling exchange of op-eds in the Baltimore Sun, from the driver and the cyclist perspectives, demonstrates. Threats to demolish existing lanes are ongoing: In the city’s affluent northern enclave of Roland Park, where another cycle track has bitterly divided residents, the Roland Park Civic League is now trying to convince city officials to remove it and restore curb-side parking.
Tensions remain high on Potomac Street, too, despite the settlement. Earlier this month, cyclists reported that several flexposts along the track had been ripped out, presumably by residents. Bikemore’s Cornish, meanwhile, counsels patience. “In the short term,” she says, “as we’re trying to change behavior, that might mean some people aren’t 100 percent satisfied with the outcome.”
____________________________________
Where are these DISABLED vehicles going to operate with great big DOMINOS PIZZA delivery vehicles taking up all space on BIKE LANES? These lanes are not being built as an alternative to DISABLED losing those PUBLIC TRANSIT BUS vehicles.
MOVING FORWARD consolidates population groups like those with disabilities. So, a senior housing complex----a disabled housing complex -----a mental health housing complex may have these option on THAT CAMPUS ONLY.
Disabled and seniors with compromised motion problems having no access to PUBLIC MOBILITY VANS OR BUSES-------not able to access these BIKE LANES------will not be seen in PORT OF BALTIMORE------downtown, midtown, uptown ---or GREATER BALTIMORE.
These are all INDUSTRIAL ROBOTIC vehicle structures having goals of moving PRODUCTS AND MATERIALS for global corporations.
Driverless-vehicle options now include scooters
Self-driving scooter demonstrated at MIT complements autonomous golf carts and city cars.
Watch Video
Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office
November 7, 2016
At MIT’s 2016 Open House last spring, more than 100 visitors took rides on an autonomous mobility scooter in a trial of software designed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the National University of Singapore, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART).
The researchers had previously used the same sensor configuration and software in trials of autonomous cars and golf carts, so the new trial completes the demonstration of a comprehensive autonomous mobility system. A mobility-impaired user could, in principle, use a scooter to get down the hall and through the lobby of an apartment building, take a golf cart across the building’s parking lot, and pick up an autonomous car on the public roads.
The new trial establishes that the researchers’ control algorithms work indoors as well as out. “We were testing them in tighter spaces,” says Scott Pendleton, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a research fellow at SMART. “One of the spaces that we tested in was the Infinite Corridor of MIT, which is a very difficult localization problem, being a long corridor without very many distinctive features. You can lose your place along the corridor. But our algorithms proved to work very well in this new environment.”
The researchers’ system includes several layers of software: low-level control algorithms that enable a vehicle to respond immediately to changes in its environment, such as a pedestrian darting across its path; route-planning algorithms; localization algorithms that the vehicle uses to determine its location on a map; map-building algorithms that it uses to construct the map in the first place; a scheduling algorithm that allocates fleet resources; and an online booking system that allows users to schedule rides.
Uniformity
Using the same control algorithms for all types of vehicles — scooters, golf carts, and city cars — has several advantages. One is that it becomes much more practical to perform reliable analyses of the system’s overall performance.
“If you have a uniform system where all the algorithms are the same, the complexity is much lower than if you have a heterogeneous system where each vehicle does something different,” says Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and one of the project’s leaders. “That’s useful for verifying that this multilayer complexity is correct.”
Furthermore, with software uniformity, information that one vehicle acquires can easily be transferred to another. Before the scooter was shipped to MIT, for instance, it was tested in Singapore, where it used maps that had been created by the autonomous golf cart.
Similarly, says Marcelo Ang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at NUS who co-leads the project with Rus, in ongoing work the researchers are equipping their vehicles with machine-learning systems, so that interactions with the environment will improve the performance of their navigation and control algorithms. “Once you have a better driver, you can easily transplant that to another vehicle,” says Ang. “That’s the same across different platforms.”
Finally, software uniformity means that the scheduling algorithm has more flexibility in its allocation of system resources. If an autonomous golf cart isn’t available to take a user across a public park, a scooter could fill in; if a city car isn’t available for a short trip on back roads, a golf cart might be.
“I can see its usefulness in large indoor shopping malls and amusement parks to take [mobility-impaired] people from one spot to another,” says Dan Ding, an associate professor of rehabilitation science and technology at the University of Pittsburgh, about the system.
Changing perceptions
The scooter trial at MIT also demonstrated the ease with which the researchers could deploy their modular hardware and software system in a new context. “It’s extraordinary to me, because it’s a project that the team conducted in about two months,” Rus says. MIT’s Open House was at the end of April, and “the scooter didn’t exist on February 1st,” Rus says.
The researchers described the design of the scooter system and the results of the trial in a paper they presented last week at the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Joining Rus, Pendleton, and Ang on the paper are You Hong Eng, who leads the SMART autonomous-vehicle project, and four other researchers from both NUS and SMART.
The paper also reports the results of a short user survey that the researchers conducted during the trial. Before riding the scooter, users were asked how safe they considered autonomous vehicles to be, on a scale from one to five; after their rides, they were asked the same question again. Experience with the scooter brought the average safety score up, from 3.5 to 4.6.
___________________________________________
'Liz Cornish, executive director of the advocacy group Bikemore, said the Maryland Avenue lane, unlike other bike lanes that are the result of “more compromise,” is built to high-quality standards that “will make more people comfortable with riding a bike in Baltimore.”'
This is what all the BIKE LANES look like in our Baltimore communities. We have shouted against all this for several years as NOT PUBLIC INTEREST---not PUBLIC HEALTH----not ENVIRONMENTAL----not TRANSPORTATION CHOICES.
As usual---we were CORRECT. We give REAL INFORMATION while global banking 1% with FAKE NEWS MEDIA and FAKE left NGOs create myth-making and propaganda.
When our RURAL PUBLIC HEALTH agencies promote SCOOTERS on sidewalks as public interest---THIS is for whom they are working----
Kroger launches groundbreaking self-driving grocery delivery service in Arizona
- Kroger is partnering with self-driving car startup Nuro to test its driverless grocery delivery vehicles at a Scottsdale, Arizona Fry's Food Store
- Customers can order same- or next-day delivery via Kroger's web or mobile app
- Each car has a safety driver behind the wheel that can override in emergencies
Published: 08:04 EDT, 16 August 2018 | Updated: 12:08 EDT, 16 August 2018
Kroger's driverless grocery delivery vehicles are finally hitting the road.
The supermarket operator said it will start testing the self-driving cars on Thursday at a Fry's Food Store in Scottsdale, Arizona.
It's part of Kroger's ongoing partnership with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup founded two years ago by two engineers who worked on self-driving cars at Google.
Kroger's driverless grocery delivery vehicles are finally hitting the road. The firm said it will start testing the self-driving cars on Thursday at a Fry's Food Store in Scottsdale, Arizona
Customers can order groceries via Kroger's website or mobile app and select same-day or next-day delivery.
There's no minimum order amount, but they will have to pay a $5.95 delivery fee.
The first phase of the the test will use a fleet of Toyota Prius cars equipped with Nuro's self-driving technology.
Each self-driving car will also have a safety driver behind the wheel.
The safety driver can override the car's functionality in case of an emergency.
'Arizona is home to some of the most innovative autonomous vehicle testing,' Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson said in a statement.
'We're proud to contribute and turn our vision for local commerce into a real, accessible service that residents of Scottsdale can use immediately.
Customers order groceries via Kroger's website or mobile app and select same-day or next-day delivery. There's no minimum order amount, but they will have to pay a $5.95 delivery fee
Kroger has chosen a Phoenix suburb as the launching pad for delivering groceries to doorsteps using driverless cars. The first phase of the the test will use a fleet of Toyota Prius cars equipped with Nuro's self-driving technology
'Our goal is to save people time, while operating safely and learning how we can further improve the experience,' he added.
Arizona has become a hotbed of self-driving car testing, with Uber, Waymo, Lyft and others trialing prototypes there.
Kroger and rival Walmart each have teamed up with autonomous vehicle companies in a bid to lower the high-cost of 'last-mile' deliveries to customer doorsteps, as online retailer Amazon.com rolls out free Whole Foods delivery for subscribers to its Prime perks program.
Walmart and Google's self-driving car company Waymo are partnering to test a service that shuttles Phoenix shoppers to stores to collect online grocery orders.
WHAT IS THE NURO SELF-DRIVING VEHICLE?
Silicon Valley startup Nuro raised $92 million to create a working prototype of its 'R1' vehicle, which the company says will never seat a human inside.
The company has partnered with Kroger to test the vans for a delivery service.
The 'R1' van is shaped like a rounded, silver lunch box, and is is half the width and about two-thirds the length of a Toyota Corolla.
It will travel at a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour.
Kroger and Nuro will tell users when R1 leaves the store and give updates on its journey.
They also will provide a code to open the compartment containing their order.
Its skinny size gives it a 3 to 4-foot (90-120cm) 'buffer' so other vehicles and pedestrians can maneuver safely around it, according to Nuro.
The R1 is a 'Level Four' fully autonomous vehicle, meaning it does not require human instruction for most situations, relying instead on high-definition mapping.
It navigates the roads using self-driving sensors including cameras, radars, and a spinning 'lidar' unit on its roof.
Customers who take advantage of Kroger's driverless grocery delivery system will still have to walk to the curb outside their house to retrieve the groceries.
'Kroger wants to bring more customers the convenience of affordable grocery delivery,' said Kroger Chief Digital Officer Yael Cosset, who added that the test will also gauge consumer demand for the service.
Kroger will use a fleet or Toyota Prius cars for the first rounds of testing, but will use Nuro's R1 driverless delivery van, which has no seats, this autumn, the companies said.
Kroger and Nuro will tell users when R1 leaves the store and give updates on its journey. They also will provide a code to open the compartment containing their order
The 'R1' van is shaped like a rounded, silver lunch box, and is is half the width and about two-thirds the length of a Toyota Corolla.
Its skinny size gives it a 3 to 4-foot (90-120cm) 'buffer' so other vehicles and pedestrians can maneuver safely around it, according to Nuro.
'While we compete final certification and testing of the R1, the Prius will be delivering groceries and helping us improve the overall service,' a Nuro spokeswoman said.
For now, the self-driving vehicles are only available for delivery to addresses that are within the store's zip code of 85257, Kroger said.
RSS Feed
