A Starship Technologies robot in 2023. The manufacturer is hoping to sell at least 10,000 delivery robots into England and make them locally if the law is changed. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenA Starship Technologies robot in 2023. The manufacturer is hoping to sell at least 10,000 delivery robots into England and make them locally if the law is changed. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesMinisters likely to support law change to allow delivery robots on England’s pathsExclusive: Safety campaigners concerned about plan for widespread deployment on already crowded pavements
Large numbers of autonomous delivery robots could be coming to towns and cities across England after ministers signalled they were likely to support a change in the law allowing their use, prompting concern from safety campaigners.
Low-speed robots, which mainly deliver groceries or takeaway food, are already in use in a handful of places but they operate in a regulatory grey area. The 1835 Highways Act bans “carriages” from pavements.
This is expected to be resolved under upcoming changes to the law on electric mobility scooters and wheelchairs. Ministers are looking to put delivery robots in the same category after a consultation.
The Department for Transport (DfT), which is leading the changes, said it is focused on safety. But campaign groups said the robots, which are programmed only to use pavements, will make crowded footways even more congested, posing a particular problem for older people, those who are blind or partially sighted and those who use mobility aids.
The box-shaped, white, six-wheeled robots manufactured by the US firm Starship Technologies are already a common sight in parts of towns and cities including Cambridge, Bristol, Milton Keynes, Sheffield, Leeds and Barnsley.
The pedestrian safety charity Living Streets said the legal status of the trials was unclear, and that in Sheffield it had emerged that one Starship Technologies hub was installed at a scout hut without the council or local people being told.
The San Francisco-based Starship, set up by two co-founders of Skype, hopes to flood the English market with more than 10,000 robots, promising to set up a manufacturing site in the UK if the government clarifies the law.
The company said last year that it “owns” robot delivery in the European urban market, and with new funding hoped to expand hugely in the UK.
Living Streets has written to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, to call for caution over the plans, and is launching a new campaign called Pavement Overload to highlight the increasingly crowded state of footways.
The letter said widespread use of delivery robots was likely to create a hazard when they come across a pedestrian and there is not enough space for both to pass.
“This is especially dangerous when they may be a wheelchair user with no dropped kerb nearby or a blind person with a guide dog trained not to take them onto the road,” it says.
“Delivery robots add to existing pavement congestion, present navigation hazards that are not reliably detectable by white cane or guide dog, and occupy space that accessible design and decades of campaigning have worked hard to protect.”
As part of the campaign, the charity has released a video that shows robots bumping into pedestrians or forcing them out of the way.
The chief executive of Living Streets, Catherine Woodhead, said it was deeply concerning that the robots already operated on pavements without authority, and that the DfT should resist the push for them to be legalised.
“We believe that pavements are for people, and the operation of robots puts the safety of pedestrians at risk, particularly for those with mobility issues,” she said. “Our pavements are already lousy with dangerous obstacles, from pavement parking to wheelie bins, preventing many disabled people from leaving their homes.”
The charity is demanding that any consultation on changing the law on powered devices on pavements be “designed with pedestrian safety and accessibility as baseline requirements, not as afterthoughts”.
A government spokesperson said: “We welcome innovation and advances in technology have the potential to boost our economy, but it’s vital the safety of pedestrians and vulnerable road users is put first.
“We will update the law for delivery robots as soon as parliamentary time allows and following public consultation.”
