Why Drones Could Save Door-To-Door Mail Delivery (vice.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Online shopping aside, people don't have as many physical items to mail as they used to, which is largely the reason why Canada Post announced it would be phasing out door-to-door mail delivery. Motherboard reports: "The corporation is exploring future use of drone technology to make deliveries, according to a report from the Canadian Press. At this point, Canada Post is engaging in a 'proper exercise,' a spokesperson told the Canadian Press, adding that the project is in its earliest, experimental stages. According to Graham Scott, the deputy editor of Canadian Business, even if mail-delivering drones remain a theoretical concept for now, it's inevitable they'll be considered as a way to drive costs down. There are many good reasons why mail delivery drones may never get off the ground. For one thing, current technology limits them to delivering one item of post at a time, which is tremendously impractical. But, as we've seen with the rolling out of community mailboxes -- a program that was put on hold earlier this year when the review was launched -- the invisible hand of the market is always looking to drive costs down. So don't count out flying robot deliveries for good. From a manager's perspective at least, drones have their advantages. They don't suffer from dog bites, and they (ideally) don't deviate from their routes. 'Drones don't twist their ankle, they don't get tired, and they don't form a union.' said Scott." In 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed during a CBS 60 Minutes interview that the company is working on a service called "Prime Air" to deliver packages by autonomous octocopter drones within 30 minutes of hitting the "buy" button. The Guardian reported last year that Amazon has been testing its drone delivery service at a secret site in Canada, following repeated warnings by the e-commerce giant that it would go outside the U.S. to bypass what it sees as the U.S. federal government's lethargic approach to the new technology.

Comments

What about the hidden costs?

[Nyder]

For example, the lawsuits from people who are suing because a mail deliver drone went out of control and crashed thru a huge window, or hit their 3 year old kid. What is the cost to find the drones that malfunction and crash in places that are hard to get to. They will need to recover the mail so it can still be delivered.

Sounds like a great idea, but honestly, doesn't seem like it's going to work as well as they want it to.

Re:What about the hidden costs?

[jandersen]

- not to mention the fact that they can - and therefore will - be intercepted by criminals. The risk of doing so will be much lower than robbing a postman, which to a criminal is almost the equivalent of being legal.

Drones + Bots + Autonomous vehicles

[justcauseisjustthat]

Autonomous vehicles will bring the packages/mail into a certain range and depending on location a drone or bot will get out of the autonomous vehicles to do the final delivery. I can see moving forward where places will have drone/bot delivery slots for mail, packages and food deliveries.

Re:Smarter solution for lower-cost door-to-door

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a non-union courier, you can already use Fedex! But mysteriously, they're not 1/3 of the cost of UPS and USPS to customers. Maybe they're just pocketing all those extra savings? But wait, all those extra profits from charging market rates yet saving 2/3 of their costs also don't seem to be getting passed along to shareholders, because UPS is nearly triple Fedex's dividend yield. So what ever could some of the reasons for this? Hmmmm...