Starship is a UK success story. Our robots made their first commercial deliveries in Milton Keynes in 2018. Since then, we’ve made more than 7 million deliveries and traveled more than 10 million miles globally.
But the UK is no longer our biggest market.
Other countries have created favourable regulation to support the roll-out, at scale, of embodied AI in public spaces.
In the UK, legislation that is more than 100 years old is holding back tech investment. Starship robots operate on pavements. When we speak to the DfT, they often raise the Highways Act 1835, which states that carriages should not travel on pavements. Our robots are certainly not carriages—nor do we believe that legislators in the 1800s drafted the Act with autonomous grocery delivery robots in mind—but this creates a grey area. Businesses need certainty and clarity.
Starship loves the UK. Our robots learned to be autonomous by making UK deliveries. We can help deliver growth, increase productivity, and help retailers make the notionally carbon-intensive and expensive last mile profitable.
How you can help
- Write to the Secretaries of State for Transport and Science, Innovation and Technology, asking them to bring forward legislation to allow regulated pavement operations.
- Write to the Minister for Local Government, asking him to include powers for local authorities to license robots for pavement use in upcoming devolution legislation (e-scooters will be regulated; we’d like to be regulated too!).
- Table Parliamentary questions asking the DfT and DSIT what progress has been made—and will be made—on regulating embodied AI self-driving robots in UK public spaces.
We’d really appreciate your support. If we’re not there already, we hope we’ll be operating in your constituency soon!
For more information, reach out to Lisa Johnson at Lisa.Johnson@starship.co.