For years we have spoken about the possibilities of drones taking to the skies to deliver packages right on your doorstep, but while the various elements of making that work are still being configured, we now have autonomous delivery vans.

Yay.

Making drop-offs in the UK as part of a trial programme, the autonomous delivery vehicles have been spearheaded by the University of Oxford self-driving spin-off Oxboticaas, well as Ocado Technologies.

Mashable reports:

The project aims to test out an emission-free, electric self-driving van – dubbed the CargoPod – as a low-impact last step in the fulfillment chain to get orders to customers.

The trial is limited to a few developments in the Royal Borough of Greenwich as part of the larger, government-backed GATEway Project.

However, because the UK requires “that autonomous test vehicles have someone to take control if anything goes wrong”, humans still operate the CargoPod which is run on Oxbotica’s Selenium autonomous control system.

You know, just in case anything goes wrong:

But the trial is more that just about driving.

The team is looking at the impact such systems have on cities and how they fit into residential areas. Research, yo.

Although over 100 deliveries have been made, it’s only once the pilot programme is expanded that the project will make deliveries elsewhere.

In the meantime, we’ll just continue using FastVan – which will most definitely get your deliveries to their destination on time.

Allowing you to select from a range of features depending on your requirements – what, where, when, how and who – you deliver whatever you like all from the convenience of the app – read about it here.

And that’s how we do it.

[source:mashable]