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."
