In Oklahoma City, News 9 has a story about how a number of local supermarket chains - Buy For Less, Smart Saver, Supermercado and Uptown Grocery - have announced the launch of “a new delivery service through autonomous vehicle company Udelv.”
The story says that “this is the first service of its kind in Oklahoma, and the goal is to help get healthy foods to those who do not have access … Some of the stores already offer online ordering for pickup or delivery, but the range is limited. This service will allow the vehicles to delve into food deserts farther away.”
News 9 says that “the Udelvs will have a backup driver to start, with a local command center monitoring each vehicle's path. The command center will continue to keep an eye on the roads and make corrections when needed once the research phase is complete.”
However, it is not as simple as just putting the self-driving vehicles on the road. The story says that “there are still some hoops to jump through, as there are currently no Oklahoma laws to govern the vehicles.”
The story says that “this is the first service of its kind in Oklahoma, and the goal is to help get healthy foods to those who do not have access … Some of the stores already offer online ordering for pickup or delivery, but the range is limited. This service will allow the vehicles to delve into food deserts farther away.”
News 9 says that “the Udelvs will have a backup driver to start, with a local command center monitoring each vehicle's path. The command center will continue to keep an eye on the roads and make corrections when needed once the research phase is complete.”
However, it is not as simple as just putting the self-driving vehicles on the road. The story says that “there are still some hoops to jump through, as there are currently no Oklahoma laws to govern the vehicles.”
- KC's View:
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Good to see that these kinds of programs can be adopted by smaller, independent retailers, and not just left for the behemoths to implement.
