Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Written evidence submitted by Starship Technologies (AVB05)

Starship Technologies is the world leader in autonomous robot delivery.

Starship has made more from 6 million deliveries globally, travelling over 12 million kilometres in doing so. We operate at Level 4 autonomy.

We operate in the US, Estonia, Finland, Germany and Denmark. In the UK, we operate in Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

Our zero emissions robots help to take cars off the roads and provide a much-loved service. For example, an independent council survey in Cambourne, Cambridgeshire showed 93% community approval.

Starship’s Personal Delivery Devices (PDDs – our robots) are low-weight and low-speed. They travel on pavements. Such devices are regulated in half of all US states, Finland, Estonia, Austria and Japan, with a number of other nations actively considering legislation.

Starship has long been calling for specific regulation in the UK around the use of pavements by autonomous PDDs.

Starship fully understands the need to ensure accessibility is built into regulation in this area – we have our own Accessibility Advisory Panel that advises us on accessibility and inclusion priorities within our own engineering and autonomous driving developments. We know that the Department is seeking to conduct more research (which Starship looks forward to contributing to), but without any mechanism built into this legislation to address the issue in future, new primary legislation may be needed. The UK looks set to fall behind in a growing global sector that solves the ‘last mile’ problem – we know that on-demand delivery is here to stay, Starship is providing an ethical and sustainable solution.

We would be more than happy to discuss this with the committee at any point.

Contact:

Lisa Johnson, Vice President of Public Affairs (Global)

March 2024