[svachalek]

Your first paragraph is fairly easily solved with data. When self driving cars are common, there will no doubt be police databases with information about detours and parking etc. Given that, they will do a much better job than humans trying to find and read signs.

The other parts of delivery are more of a problem. But remember at one time we thought it was necessary to have humans pump gas, operate elevators, and dispense cash. Those tasks were only partially automated, but sufficiently enough that the rest of the job was dumped onto the customer.

[yoster]

You are limiting your thinking to one type of solution. You also forgot the one thing that will trump all this, the human mind. A criminal mind would easily be able to rip off all the goods in a situation with driver-less cars.

[glenra]

That is a movie-plot threat; you're being silly. Vehicles can stream audio and video and GPS tracking data to dispatchers who would know where and how the car got broken into and could dispatch security. The cars don't need windshields and can be hardened to making breaking in more difficult. With cameras and GPS tracking in all the other cars in the area, not to mention surveillance drones and police helicopters, getting away clean is likely to be tricky.

[yoster]

Actually, you are being silly. You have never been in "the hood" then where cops take forever to get there. Ever been to L.A., NYC, etc.? All that stuff cost extra money to equip a vehicle. Cameras can't do much with someone that has a bandana and shades on. You think the police will actually dispatch a helicopter for a driver-less vehicle? You sound like YOU have been watching too many movies. The cost to run drones in the air would end up being astronomical. I hope you are not being serious....

[glenra]

You are postulating a group that is willing to hijack an unmanned truck in order to steal the goods being delivered and doesn't mind the risk of being seen because they "have a bandana and shades on". Question: What is so special about an unmanned truck given that circumstance? Wouldn't it be at least as easy for a group like that to hijack a manned truck? Why don't the same gangs pull a gun on the UPS guy and take all his stuff? That would be in some ways easier than taking stuff from an unmanned delivery van. The unmanned van can go into lockdown mode and doesn't have a driver who can be threatened to make him give up the key to the back.

The cost for any private party to send up their own monitor drones is coming down very quickly and will likely be insignificant by the time unmanned delivery vehicles are common. If one unmanned delivery car sends out a distress signal, other unmanned delivery cars in the area could release drones monitored by a local security firm to go see what's happening, follow the bad guys, and tell the cops exactly where they went.

The sort of drones I'm talking about might look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

(You can already get copters of that sort with at least a 10 minute battery range for a mere few hundred bucks.)

[yoster]

Who said anything about hijacking a truck? This is called grab and go. You obviously have never heard of shoplifting or beer runs. This would be a crime of opportunity which happens all the time with or without surveillance. You have gone off the deep end if you think those drones are practical for security use. A 10 minute battery range is laughable.

[glenra]

Is THAT all you meant? That criminals would grab the delivery at the delivery location? Bah.

I'm sorry, but anybody building an unmanned delivery system will have thought of that right away and dealt with it any number of ways. For instance, consider this scenario:

You order a pizza using an app on your phone. You get a text message "the car is 5 minutes away from your address - please meet it outside. Your unlock code is 537." You go outside. You get another text message "the car is pulling up to your address now; your unlock code is 537." You see a delivery van pull up and pause in front of your address. There is a well-marked door on the right side of the vehicle. The door is locked, but there is a keypad. You enter the code 537 (or alternately just wave your phone or credit card near the reader, authenticating with RFID or bluetooth. Or insert the card you used into a card reader.) and the door opens, your pizza boxes are revealed - one or more pizzas are dispensed like a stack of money showing up from a slot at an ATM. You take your pizza(s). The door automatically closes and the vehicle drives to the next delivery location.

If you don't show up on time, the car texts you once or twice more, waits for another 5 minutes or so, but eventually gives up and goes off to make the next delivery.

If some hoodlums show up first, they don't know the code and don't have the phone/credit card that was used to make the order, because they are not you and weren't told by you to pick up the pizza from the car. They cannot open the locked door so they cannot "grab and go" without defeating the physical security of the car, which would in all likelihood be stronger than would the physical security of a MANNED delivery vehicle. They could of course mug the recipient to get the pizza, but that's no different from mugging a delivery guy now.

[3825]

Google might have to license Microsoft's "avoid ghetto" patent and then just blacklist certain areas. No grocery deliveries for Gotham City!