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

Re:Just sayin'

[Yvan256]

Well, human employees don't fall from the sky and cause property damage, injury and death.

Well, I guess you don't know my friend Steve Austin. He used to be an astronaut, you know. His last crash cost him about six million dollars, man.

Re:Hmmm

[JoeMerchant]

Build homes with mail delivery chimneys.

In America it costs 50 cents.

[Iamthecheese]

Go ahead. Call FedEx and say you want them to swing by your house every day just in case you have outgoing mail. Tell them volume will be very low. Tell them you won't sign a contract. And tell them you're willing to pay fifty cents per one ounce parcel to be sent anywhere in America. The US parcel service isn't afraid of change, they've embraced every bit of cost saving technology possible. But there are millions of Americans that the internet still doesn't reach. People too (literally) retarded, too poor or just unwilling to buy PC's and people too poor or too disabled to walk to the nearest parcel delivery store. (hundreds of miles for a few, by the way)

Okay I wrote all that before I clicked the link: it's a bad link. Canada is actually using community boxes which require a short walk. Less ideal but it still preserves the principle of the thing. My point is the USPS is the last remaining government service that's keeping millions of Americans from being completely priced out of being able to effectively communicate with the world. It's also offering a service no one else can. Government mail delivery won't be obsolete until another company can actually match its costs (and not by cutting services)