
Amazon to deliver in 30 mins - BBC trials for delivering goods by drones - lifeisstillgood
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/36887325
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dingaling
Given that Amazon seldom seem able to even _dispatch_ my orders within two
days, I think they'll have to implement some serious upstream process
improvements before "30 minutes" becomes anyway imaginable.

In my recent experience the actual physical delivery process is only about
one-third of the overall waiting time. But I suppose warehouse processes are
less PR-friendly than sexy drone stories.

In contrast vendors selling through ebay consistently have the item inserted
into the delivery system on the same day.

~~~
BillinghamJ
In London, Amazon is consistently able to deliver many items within one hour
via courier. It's called Prime Now.

Two-hour delivery is free if you have Prime. One hour is about £5.

On the normal Amazon.co.uk Prime, they dispatch same-day and always deliver
next day, usually by ~1pm.

~~~
dingaling
Interesting, thanks for the info. Living in 'the regions' in the UK I wasn't
aware of those London services.

It does illustrate why in my experience non-Prime customers are drifting away
from Amazon, though. They're sharpening their localised and top-tier delivery
experience whilst seemingly letting 'ordinary' orders languish. Whereas I can
go to another retailer, or straight to the manufacturer, and have my order on
my carpet before Amazon even put it in a delivery lorry.

~~~
sudhirj
Depends entirely on what the item is and who the seller is. If it's on the
Marketplace, Amazon has almost no involvement is dispatch and delivery. If
it's Amazon Fulfilled, they pick up and handle delivery once the seller is
ready for dispatch. I think the Prime and Prime Now items are stocked in
Amazon's warehouses and allow for full control.

~~~
camtarn
Items which are 'Fulfilled By Amazon' are actually stored in Amazon's
warehouses. The seller just ships a bulk order of the item to the warehouse
any time stock gets low. Very useful for small or white label manufacturers
who get their stock made in China, and don't have any facilities to store it
in the US/EU.

[https://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-
amazon/...](https://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-
amazon/features-benefits.html)

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gonvaled
What a nightmare: thousands of little drones flying around our heads, causing
privacy issues, unwanted noise and danger, for what? To deliver non-critical
stuff in a short time? Who needs the newest Kindle or those cool tennis socks
in 30 min?

Let's keep our priorities straight, if needed through drone taxes.

~~~
IanCal
If there's a 1kg box at a shop within 5-10 miles of me, why should the
delivery of that require a real human to take a one ton box of metal all the
way here through the middle of a busy town?

> unwanted noise and danger

I'd be interested in knowing the noise, danger and pollution that comes from
regular (or rush) deliveries.

~~~
sevenless
But that truck can deliver hundreds of those boxes at a time. So it's one
truck versus _a huge swarm_ of drones. (Some of which may drop that 1kg box on
someone's head.)

Difficult to imagine a case for this delivery method other than pure instant
gratification.

~~~
WillPostForFood
As you say, trucks are dangerous, they are burning fossil fuels, they are
contributing to traffic. Those are all valid reasons to move to drones beyond
instant gratification.

Trucks can't deliver hundreds of boxes at a time, they can deliver hundreds of
boxes during a day of driving. The quora post linked below suggests between
200-500 a day. Depending on length of flight, you might be able to replace a
truck that delivers 200 packages with 5 drones delivering 4 packages an hour,
while limiting flights to 10 hours a day. A huge swarm isn't necessarily
needed.

[https://www.quora.com/How-many-packages-does-a-UPS-
delivery-...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-packages-does-a-UPS-delivery-
driver-deliver-per-day-on-average)

~~~
sevenless
Well, trucks don't have to burn fossil fuels either. There's no reason we
can't switch to electric trucks, which will be quiet and won't pollute (at
least in their location).

As for danger and traffic, I'd be surprised if low-altitude air traffic, air
collisions and falling objects didn't become an issue in a world where
delivery drones were commonplace.

It stands to reason that rolling boxes in bulk around on wheels should be a
lot more energy efficient and reliable than flying individual boxes around in
the air. I'm sure drones have a place, but they can't replace bulk delivery.

~~~
IanCal
> It stands to reason that rolling boxes in bulk around on wheels should be a
> lot more energy efficient and reliable than flying individual boxes around
> in the air.

Not necessarily. It would stand to reason if you were comparing identical
routes, but we're not. Rolling around the boxes in bulk requires travelling in
quite restricted ways, through often congested areas, and because it's in bulk
needs to travel to every location on the route. So the final box has been
carried _far_ further than the distance it needed to.

How much more efficient could you make your route in a normal truck if you
were able to remove, say, 5 boxes from your load. That's 5 locations you can
take away from your overall plan. How many truck miles can you remove from
your journey? How many drone miles must you add?

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sevenless
The best thing is if you keep a butterfly net handy, you get a free drone with
every delivery.

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Retr0spectrum
To be honest the mobile version looks better, but if anyone wants the desktop
version, it's here:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36887325](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36887325)

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freyr
According to the FAA's latest regulations published in June, every commercial
drone needs its own remote operator, the operator needs to maintain a visual
line of sight with the drone at all times, and the drone cannot fly over
people who are not involved in its operation. These rules seem to make
Amazon's drone delivery project a non-starter in the U.S. for now. Perhaps the
UK has more lenient regulations.

The complete summary of rules is here:

[http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf](http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf)

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collyw
I can imagine pirate drones attacking these and knoking the contents to the
ground.

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pgz
Aside from the delivery in 30 minutes, for me the coolest part is delivery to
the back of your garden. You can get secure deliveries, even while not at
home. That's great.

~~~
gonvaled
Secure? If a drone comes to drop it, a drone comes to pick it up.

~~~
rahimnathwani
It's easier to make a drone that can drop off packages (which are loaded by
some special process at the warehouse) than it is to make a drone that can
pick up arbitrary-sized packages from a garden.

~~~
gonvaled
Sure, but the incentive is there once you start dropping valuable goods. And
drone technology is improving.

I guess you'll have a 2-3 year secure-delivery-to-your-garden window.

Build a drone that tracks other drones going out of the Amazon warehouse, wait
until parcel is dropped, and pick it up.

You could of course build a drone-police which shuts down all dark-drones. I
hope the costs of such an infrastructure will be paid by taxes on drone
delivery (or by increased price in drone delivery), and that society at large
is not left covering the cost of such nonsense.

~~~
limaoscarjuliet
In U.S. vast majority of items delivered to me were left at the front door in
plain sight. They were never stolen.

I imagine the packages dropped off at the backyard will be even more secure
than that.

~~~
gonvaled
Whether it is worth stealing depends on several factors:

\- is it worth it?

\- will I get caught?

\- am I a robber?

Stealing from the front of your house does not happen because most people are
not robbers, and it is easy to get caught. Besides, you don't know what's
inside, so you don't know if it's worth it.

A criminal operation with a dark-drone infrastructure is a different issue
altogether:

\- difficult to get caught, at least until we create structures to fight such
operations

\- it is organized by thieves - by definition

\- it does not matter what you are stealing: once you have the dark-drones
working, operating them is very cheap, so you can steal as much as you can,
making the operations profitable.

~~~
Ma8ee
It won't be cheap when your thief drones start to be shot down and it won't be
safe when the police start to follow your drones back to your hiding place.

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grabcocque
A "pilot"? What?

I am 99.999999% certain Amazon intends for them to be completely autonomous.

~~~
wingerlang
> How can you build a system where one pilot is responsible for many drones?

They might be imagining the pilot being some form of "air controller" person.

~~~
8draco8
I imagine it will be semi-automatic. Drone will go to it's destination and on
arival human pilot will take control over drone to deliver package. To make it
fully autonomus Amazon would have to install standarized landing spaces in all
customers houses. Not all people have garden/safe spot where packege can be
just drop off. Also those spots tends to look and be in different places. For
some people it will be back garden for other some kind of terrace with roof
and no walls thats why final stage of delivery will have to be operated by
human.

~~~
wingerlang
They mention in the article that a costumer would put a "landing mat" on their
property. I imagine to get one of these, they'd have to agree to something
that makes them liable in case they put it somewhere where the drone breaks.

