Starship delivery robot trials by Swiss Post have gone well according to the postal operator.

The pilot used Starship robots and was run in partnership with the contact lens company discountlens.ch and followed on from an earlier successful trial with Jelmoli in Zurich.

In a statement, Swiss Post said: “During their deployment between mid-October 2017 and January 2018, the delivery robots completed almost 200 runs covering 800 km without experiencing any accidents or collisions.

“As in previous cases, the robots, although essentially autonomous, were accompanied by a human assistant.”

Andreas Hungerbühler, Managing Director of discountlens.ch, commented: “The needs of our customers are changing. They are more mobile and want goods ordered today to be with them as quickly as possible. This is why discountlens.ch is testing new delivery concepts, such as delivery by robot. Customers responded very positively to the new technology and wanted to try it out.”

Swiss Post explained why it will have to draw upon the results of tests conducted outside Switzerland to get a more complete picture of how the robots can be used for fully autonomous deliveries: “If the robots are to be put to future use on Swiss pavements without supervision, it is important to run tests autonomously. But due to the legal framework in Switzerland, this is not currently possible. This is why Starship Technologies, the manufacturer of the delivery robots, aims to gather findings from fully autonomous operation at a variety of locations around the world.”

Claudia Pletscher, Head of Development & Innovation at Swiss Post, added: “We are happy to see Starship taking this step.

“We will be able to benefit from Starship’s experiences at a future point in time.”