Droning There

But The Birds Might Cry Fowl

 

Need that Wendy’s Pretzel Baconator burger and fries right away? And you don’t want to wait for traffic? And you live in Christiansburg, Virginia?

You’re in luck. Wendy’s has teamed up with DoorDash, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and the drone company Wing to make it so.

Christiansburg has a population of 21,824 people. For comparison: City Stadium in Richmond, 200 miles east and home of the Richmond Kickers soccer team, has a full capacity of 22,611 people.

This pilot(less) program follows on the heels of a reportedly successful teamed drone delivery service in Queensland, Australia in 2022. Wing provides similar services in three countries; they started delivery from a Walmart in Dallas, with a reach of 60,000 homes. As our friends at Transport Topics put it: “Let the baby wipes and forgotten birthday candles fall from the sky.”

Experimental? Not so much as test market environments used to work out logistics issues, timing, and details like weight distribution, power line avoidance, and safe landing zones.

The impact of drone delivery carries a potentially positive impact on other sectors of commercial and residential delivery, both long haul and final-mile.

Consider the electric bike and scooter and car and van delivery vehicles we see and experience daily in urban and suburban environments. We’ve experienced those close calls with Vespas that too-often tend to ignore traffic lights. And the lingering effect of a post-pandemic life is our increased tendency to have things delivered to our homes and businesses instead of our going out to fetch them ourselves.

The net result from an expanded delivery system via drone is the very real possibility that our roadway traffic would decrease to a level that actually improved the ability of commercial delivery vehicles to reach their destinations faster.

Less traffic is a key ingredient to smoother sailing. And you’ve got the whole “Burgers Not Bombs” campaign angle. Don’t forget the Classic Chocolate Frosty. And help us all if Wendy’s forgets to pack a spoon.