Domino is proving once again it’s a trendsetter. The pizza chain has teamed up with Ford to test a new delivery service with driverless cars #automagic
Ford and Domino will be testing an autonomous pizza delivery car in the following month. As you can imagine, the car will be restricted to deliveries made in Ann Arbor, Michigan. So, if you live here, there’s a good chance to get your pizza from a self-driving car. This will be an opportunity for Domino to see the viability of such a service, while it will help Ford develop the kind of autonomous car people will feel comfortable around.
The pizza company will use a Ford Fusion equipped with all the sensors, cameras, radar and LIDAR needed for such a mission. Even though the car won’t be driven around by a human, there will still be an engineer behind the wheel. He won’t interact with customers though, in order to not spoil the test results. Tinted windows will hide him from the exterior world, so he’ll be ready to intervene only if the car has a malfunction.
This means customers will get a text when the car is near their location. They will need to come outside and press the last four digits of their phone number on a touchscreen display. This is located on the rear passenger window. The numbers typed unlock the car and the pizza can be removed and taken indoors.
The companies will look out for any problems, delays in delivery or customer confusion; any of these will help Domino improve future autonomous delivery as well as show Ford what customers expect from such technology. The carmaker intends to develop driverless cars without steering wheel, accelerator pedals or brake for ride-sharing fleets but it doesn’t exclude their use in delivery.
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