Autonomous vehicles could deliver a solution to food deserts
In the near future, your groceries could be delivered to your neighborhood, street, or even front door by a drone or robot. In fact, much of the technology to make it happen already exists – yet despite the rise in grocery delivery services in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, automated delivery is not widely used.
College of Engineering researchers set out to explore how these technologies might improve people’s lives and how customers felt about their orders being dropped off by a robot. The researchers were especially interested in how automated delivery services could help people in lower-income food deserts to receive fresh groceries.
“During Covid there was the enormous increase in grocery delivery, and people got used to that,” said Jeremy Michalek, professor of engineering and public policy and . “At the time we didn’t know what kind of consumers would opt for delivery – this time we wanted to find out what kind of consumers would and how many.”
The team found that a majority of were indifferent when it came to human vs. autonomous delivery methods, and about 16% were already enthusiastic about delivery in general. Participants who lived farthest from grocery stores and those who had more children were the most willing to pay for delivery, and household income did not significantly impact willingness to pay for delivery services.
“We expected that lower income participants would be less willing or less able to pay for delivery, but that didn’t pan out,” Michalek said. However, he added, “low-income respondents were less sensitive to delivery delays, which could present an opportunity to reduce operational costs.”
Since customers living farther from grocery stores self-reported as more willing to pay for delivery services, automation could help expand access to those areas. Michalek noted the potential for a business or organization to take on this challenge, possibly with sliding-scale payments to help subsidize delivery to lower-income customers in food deserts.
The team found that consumers largely fall into three major groups: “delivery compromisers,” for whom human delivery is worth $3.00 more than robot delivery; “delivery indifferent” consumers, who are not willing to pay much for any kind of delivery; and “delivery enthusiasts,” who place high value on any kind of delivery. Overall, if robot delivery can reduce costs, improve speed, or both, it could win over a substantial share of the market.
“Particularly for an organization thinking about the future of grocery delivery, for the largest [consumer] group you have to be both fast and cheap to overcome the automation disadvantage,” he said. “But there is a group of about 16% of enthusiasts who are already on board.”
In addition to Michalek, , postdoctoral researcher for engineering and public policy, and Corey Harper, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, contributed to the research.
Jeremy Michalek