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This week, delivery robots testing companies hit a stumbling block in San Francisco. The Board of Supervisors of the city voted to require permissions for any self-governing delivery devices. It is restricting them to specific areas of the city, especially less-crowded areas. Moreover, these robots aren’t allowed to make actual deliveries. They are just allowed to be used for testing purposes. This restriction will not be applied to delivery drones. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors just has jurisdiction over the sidewalks. The initial complaints were submitted by a group Walk San Francisco, which campaigns for the safety of pedestrians.

The group was concerned that these self-governing robots would pose a hazard to the elderly and younger children on the crowded sidewalks of the city, it is due to they use lasers and sensors to navigate. At the time when it was first proposed, this legislation was an outright ban. It’s been softened to regulation, which makes sense. Besides all the facts, San Francisco is known as a tech-forward city, with its proximity to Silicon Valley. It is still one of the first places that delivery robots first began operating, so it might be a little surprising that the city would make moves to stop them so drastically. It might be a challenge for companies such as Marble, the company has been operating as a test in Mission and Potrero Hill districts of San Francisco with human help.