Delivery service is all the rage these days, especially with the pandemic which has forced restaurants to be more aggressive with delivery, and with customers opting for delivery instead of driving out. Now over in Singapore, Grab will be testing out a robot that will go around a mall collecting ordered food items on behalf of drivers.
For those unfamiliar, Grab is basically Asia’s equivalent to Uber where they offer ride hailing services as well as food delivery. The idea behind the robot is that instead of the drivers having to walk around the mall going from one restaurant to another picking up food items, the robot can do it for them.
Once the food items have been collected, it will then be moved to a central location where the drivers will pick up the orders and send it to the customer. According to Grab, the robot is designed to help save time and could shave as much as 15 minutes off a journey. This means that the driver will be able to deliver food faster, customers get their food in less time (which helps keep it fresh), and drivers will also be able to make more trips which means more money for them (and Grab).
It’s actually a pretty cool idea, but it won’t be the first time a delivery service has experimented with robots. Companies such as Domino’s Pizza have been testing out making deliveries using robots.