Personal Delivery Robot pilot program approved

A new type of pedestrian will soon be hitting the streets of Culver City.

The Culver City City Council directed city staff to finalize implementation documents for a one-year pilot program to allow the use of Personal Delivery Device (PDD) robots in Culver City at its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, August 10.

These PDD robots are fully and/or semi-autonomous carts used for delivering commodities over short distances with minimal or no human intervention. They are best known as food delivery robots, but can also transport other small items along sidewalks and pedestrian areas.

This item was in the works for several years, with firm Coco Robotics first presenting the idea for a PDD program in Culver City in 2021. Over the next five years, the program underwent extensive consideration — including subcommittee meetings and discussions with nearby cities Santa Monica and West Hollywood about their experiences — before being presented to the council for formal consideration.

A study that relied mostly on theoretical modeling and lacked real-world samples concluded that using PDDs would reduce some companies’ reliance on trucks for deliveries. Still, these robots can face some of the same challenges that pedestrians — particularly those with restricted mobility — struggle with.

Unlike automated driving services like Waymo, which operate on streets whose conditions have been extensively mapped and documented, the various sidewalks that make up cities and the wide range of conditions are still being collected by technology firms.

MJ Burk Chun, co-founder and VP of product and design at Serve Robotics, said in an interview with PCMag in March that a comprehensive breakdown of sidewalks and their conditions “is not a data set that exists,” and malfunctions can potentially lead to extreme results. ABC’s affiliate station in Chicago, WLS-TV, reported on two separate incidents in March in which robots operated by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics crashed into bus shelters in the city.

A representative with Serve Robotics — which provides PDDs for nationally recognized brands like DoorDash and Uber Eats — spoke at last Monday night’s meeting about the benefits these robots can bring to the city. She highlighted two major issues which PDDs can help address: traffic congestion and parking availability. She also noted that introducing robots into the food delivery market can reduce local emissions by an average of 16%.

“By supporting short-distance delivery,” a representative for Serve Robotics said at the August 10 meeting, “Serve robots can reduce delivery vehicle miles, congestion, and competition for valuable curb and parking space.”

Coco Robotics' footprint has grown dramatically since first coming to Culver City with their proposal, featuring robots working the sidewalks of West Hollywood, Santa Monica, the city of Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. These robots will also offer advertising opportunities to generate revenue for the city, which will be regulated by the city and limited to visual ads.

Other preliminary regulations attached to the item Monday night include the right to geofence the PDDs — which limits their access to specific areas of the city — speed limits set by the city, and potential limits on the number of PDDs allowed in a given area.

Cameras and the data they collect have been a subject of recent debate and controversy nationwide, including in Culver City. Councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin acknowledged those concerns and asked staff about the video recording capabilities of PDDs. Cameras enable these robots to navigate and travel effectively, but how the data was handled afterward raised concerns for McMorrin.

According to Senior Management Analyst Alicia Ide, the city’s Service Operator User Agreement with providers will include an extensive data and privacy protection section that outlines data sharing and encryption among other things.

“I am interested in limiting that as much as possible for the safety of everyone that's out and about,” McMorrin said of camera data falling into malicious outside hands at Monday’s meeting.

Besides these comments, deliberations were brief. The proposal was approved by the Standing Mobility Subcommittee — comprising Mayor Freddy Puza and Vice Mayor Bubba Fish — before being presented to the city council, and the two other councilmembers aside from McMorrin did not participate in the discussion leading to Monday night’s approval.

Councilmember Dan O’Brien recused himself from the item due to a potential conflict of interest stemming from his employment with the Culver City Chamber of Commerce. At the same time, Councilmember Albert Vera cited the potential revenue the program could bring to his business at Sorrento Italian Market as the reason he stepped away from the item.