Do City Delivery Drones Make Sense? No One Knows, but They're Flying Over NYC
Key takeaways
- For the next year, delivery drones operated by the British company Skyports are taking daily weekday trips across New York City’s East River, between the tip of Manhattan and a pier in Brooklyn.
- The pilot program will also try to answer a question that hangs over the entire drone delivery industry: Where does it make sense?
- (The Port Authority declined to name the health care system for contractual reasons.) “Will deliveries make it to their destination faster and within the financial constraints of the current carriers they are using?
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a six-propeller flying vehicle with a nearly eight-foot wingspan.
For the next year, delivery drones operated by the British company Skyports are taking daily weekday trips across New York City’s East River, between the tip of Manhattan and a pier in Brooklyn. Since early May—a bit behind schedule—the drones have carried light cargo for a New York City health care system. Right now, those loads are basically a few pounds of paper; once the healthcare system is confident the setup works, it should include nonhazardous, non-biological packages, such as light pharmaceuticals.
The drones are part of an experiment run by two New York-New Jersey agencies to discover how a relatively new and sometimes controversial sky-bound delivery tech might fit into a hectic urban environment—and the airspace above it. The pilot program will also try to answer a question that hangs over the entire drone delivery industry: Where does it make sense?