Pizza Hut Canada testing delivery robots to complete short deliveries

Pizza Hut Canada and Serve Robotics have recently teamed up to test a service that lets customers receive their mobile delivery orders with small robots.

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Customers need to use the Pizza Hut app to place their order and then can track the robot's location - and receive a custom PIN number to retrieve their order from a built-in storage compartment.

During the test run in Vancouver, the delivery bots were only traveling extremely short distances, but could one day travel a few kilometers. The zero-emission robots can navigate their way down sidewalks and safely around pedestrians, though Serve engineers are available to remotely monitor - and control - the robot if there are any problems along the way.

As noted by Dr. Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics: "Serve is excited to partner with Pizza Hut to provide Vancouver customers with the convenience and reliability of zero-emissions robotic delivery. This is an important step forward in our efforts to expand our delivery platform to serve more cities and communities."

Kashani said his robots aren't meant to directly replace human delivery drivers, but as a viable solution to resolve any labor gaps suffered by restaurants. Pizza Hut and other restaurants would benefit by using the bot to conduct deliveries where drivers would make less money - and be away from the restaurant for longer durations.

Here is what Manish Dhankher, Director of Operations at Pizza Hut Canada, had to say about the partnership:

"Pizza Hut is thrilled to be at the forefront of this technology and partner with Serve Robotics to bring this offering to Canada for the first time. This signals an exciting step forward for the future of delivery technology in Canada. We're confident Vancouverites will not only experience delight in having a robot deliver their food but will also find this compliments Pizza Hut's existing delivery service, allowing us to deliver more food to more people. We look forward to learning from this pilot in Vancouver."

Delivery robots are becoming even more popular, and more pilot test programs are being launched in North America and across the world. They are suitable for university campuses, apartment complexes, and major metropolitan areas - locations where restaurants are close by, but perhaps not as efficient for cars and human drivers to navigate to and from.