Food delivery robots from Starship Technologies are coming to Pitt’s Oakland campus; Nextpittsburgh, September 3, 2019

Bill O'Toole, Nextpittsburgh; Food delivery robots from Starship Technologies are coming to Pitt’s Oakland campus

"Stakeholders got their first look at the project last week when the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation (OPDC) held a public meeting where Starship gave a presentation on the project.

The university has confirmed to us that Starship’s service is due to launch later this fall, but the company declined to offer further specifics about the project to NEXTpittsburgh. According to the minutes of the meeting, they plan to begin a staged rollout in mid-September. The fleet will eventually have 25 autonomous rovers carting goods (presumably to hungry students) from campus food vendors such as Forbes Street Market...

The food delivery service poses obvious practical challenges for the flow of traffic and people throughout the bustling neighborhood. According to the minutes of the public meeting, several attendees expressed concerns over the potential for traffic and bicycle accidents.

“It’ll be interesting to see how they interface with people there in the public right of ways,” says Georgia Petropoulos, executive director of the Oakland Business Improvement District, which has no formal role in the project."