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How many OECD countries will have drone delivery services by 2020?

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Drone Delivery Services

Commercial flying robots can already deliver postal packages, food, blood, or medical supplies. Some believe they may soon do so as regularly as the post. Is this likely to happen?

Latest developments

In Germany, DHL has built a totally automated system to deliver packages, such as medical supplies, between two remote villages in the Swiss Alps. People can visit a DHL "Skyports" location where it stores the drones, insert their package into a box, and input a code that attaches the package to a drone and activates it [1].

Amazon Prime is developing ‘Prime Air’, a drone delivery service for small packages to destinations close to Amazon logistics centres. Testing centres are currently located in the US, UK, Austria and Israel [2].

In July, drone company Flirtey partnered with 7Eleven to test the delivery of food and drinks to a private residence 1 mile away [3]. In August, Flirtey carried out further testing, delivering Domino’s pizza in New Zealand. Flirtey CEO Matt Sweeney, expects to be regularly servicing customers by late 2017 [4].

US drone company Zipline is delivering blood in Rwanda, dropping blood parcels to remote health centers. Health workers can request a blood drop via text message, and it arrives around 30 minutes later [5].

Issues

Regulations and laws will need adaptation for the many emerging types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for private and commercial uses. Overly restrictive rules may stifle innovation but privacy and liability risks will need due consideration, too. Safety and reliability will affect demand and public opinion [6].