Knoxville moves forward with food robot ban

Since the University of Tennessee at Knoxville launched a fleet of food delivery robots in 2022, locals have called them everything from cute and convenient to annoying and weird, but the city is likely to give the little automatons a new label: banned.

The Knoxville City Council voted unanimously and speedily in favor of prohibiting personal delivery robots at its Tuesday meeting, following the recommendation of city staff who said the robots could pose safety and accessibility risks downtown.

After supporting the ordinance on first reading, council members will vote again on final passage at its April 30 meeting. Council members unanimously supported a six-month moratorium on the robots that gave city staff time to study them, but the pause expires April 30.

The robots could block sidewalks downtown and cause congestion, said Carter Hall, the city’s director of strategic policy and programs. Even if robots would have trouble navigating cramped sidewalks and busy commercial areas downtown, they could be deployed some day, Hall said.

“We just don’t think that it makes sense right now at the intersection of available infrastructure and the operating models that we see currently used,” Hall said.

The prohibition will not affect robots at UT, whose streets and sidewalks are owned by the state. City staff looked to UT as an example of how the robots can work well. One key difference between the campus and the city is the width of sidewalks. There is room on most campus sidewalks for students to share the right of way

Food-delivery robots still will be allowed on the University of Tennessee at Knoxville campus. But the Knoxville City Council is set to ban them outright in the city after a unanimous first vote.

PHOTOS BY JAMAR COACH/NEWS SENTINEL Starship delivery robots transport an order on the UT campus on March 10, 2022. Starship is an app service that employs small robots to deliver food to students across campus.