Toronto outright banned a startup I was helping out with in 2021, they ended up packing up and moving it to Miami- Toronto has a rule that the city should not be made more inaccessible to folks with disabilities, and that a delivery robot could potentially cause an accessibility issue on the sidewalk for blind or wheelchair using folks. They didn't reach out to the startup, or tell them about the vote happening at council, they did invite the accessibility advocacy groups in. I agree the startup should have been banned (against my own interests) pending a review, however, I also believe a review of the technology and startup would have left very little room for concern. That said, I'm still skeptical robots on sidewalks are a great idea, ideally they can operate on the roadways.
This issue is going to become an issue with AVs too, if availability is the value prop and number of vehicles creates the availability and there are no humans to drive, I presume we end up with another situation where sidewalks across the world were littered with thousands of those lime/bird scooter things.
This issue is going to become an issue with AVs too, if availability is the value prop and number of vehicles creates the availability and there are no humans to drive, I presume we end up with another situation where sidewalks across the world were littered with thousands of those lime/bird scooter things.
https://www.therobotreport.com/toronto-city-council-votes-to...