Executive Update: Preparing your community for robots in public spaces
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Date Published: April 20, 2025
On April 15, 2025, the Urban Robotics Foundation hosted our 2025 Executive Update webinar. Our Managing Director, Lee St. James, provided highlights from URF's "2025 Executive Guide to PMRs: What you Need to Know about Public-area Mobile Robots". While the guide is available as a free download on our website, this webinar offered additional context with perspectives provided by our two guest speakers - Doug McCollough and Vignesh Ram (see below).
The recording for the session can be accessed by using this link or clicking the below.
GUEST SPEAKERS
Doug McCollough is the Executive Director of the Intelligent Community Forum Institute in Dublin, Ohio. ICF is a global partner to the Urban Robotics Foundation. Doug works to connect people to opportunities, remove barriers, and promote change in initiatives ranging from Smart and Connected Cities, IT Workforce Development, expanding broadband access, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, and Smart Mobility. Doug now serves as the Executive Director of The Beta District in Central Ohio, which organizes innovation, development, and investment in Smart Mobility industry sectors. He speaks as a Subject Matter Expert and advocate on using technology for community development.
It is notable that Dublin, Ohio is a 4-time ICF Smart21 Community award recipient and a 2-time ICF Top7 Community. The ICF offers online training courses to share best practices in economic and community development. Through two decades of work with hundreds of communities, ICF has gained strategic insights into their development and turned these into analytics, recommendations and training for economic developers, community developers and elected and administrative leaders of local government.
Vignesh (Viggy) Ram is Vice President of Public Policy with Serve Robotics, where he leads public affairs engagement for the future of robotic on-demand delivery. He most recently served on the policy teams at Match Group and Postmates, where his work focused on antitrust, the future of work, privacy, robotics, mobility, and how tech intersects with our communities.
Spun off from Uber in 2021 as an independent company, Serve has completed tens of thousands of deliveries for enterprise partners such as Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. The company has scalable multi-year contracts, including a signed agreement to deploy up to 2,000 delivery robots on the Uber Eats platform across multiple U.S. markets.
Navigating Change and Risks
Robots are designed in a near infinite array of sizes and purposes. Public-area mobile robots (or PMRs) operate in public spaces among non-involved, and often inattentive bystanders, such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists. PMRs are ground based and use wheels, legs, or tracks.
We all know that regulation follows innovation but we stand at a crossroads where mobile robotics, AI and related technologies are transforming our public spaces at a pace that has never been seen before.
These technologies offer tremendous potential while generating legitimate concerns. Especially with public-area mobility options like robotaxis and automated vehicles which are being operated without a human driver on board and for PMRs that are used in public space like sidewalks, pathways, shopping malls, airports and other public spaces. A city manager seeking to address labor shortages may see PMRs as a great solution while a person with mobility challenges might view them as either a threat or an opportunity for enhanced accessibility.
The challenge extends beyond achieving benefits like labor savings, sustainability, or cleaner
and safer environments. The real test is ensuring cities and facility operators realize clear value while protecting and serving all community members. This is particularly important for regulators and innovators to get right because we are introducing automated devices without visible human oversight into spaces where bystanders, pedestrians and untrained individuals may not know what to expect or how to interact with these technologies.
USE CASES/ Types of Public-area Mobile Robots
The most popular type of PMR is the delivery robot or ‘PDD’ (Personal Delivery Device). They are most often used for “last-mile” food delivery and our guest panelist Viggy Ram, will share his experience at Serve Robotics. But new use-cases are constantly being tested and deployed in many locations such as mobility assistance, public safety, emergency response support, cleaning, lawn mowing and more.
Doug shares about the public safety pilot project in Dublin and then Viggy shares about changing attitudes he's seen towards robots during his time at Serve (2018 "Techlash", and need for process and collaborative planning)
PATH for PMR Adoption
In URF's 2025 Executive Guide, we provide a high-level overview of the five technology enablers, the demographic and environmental drivers of adoption, the four key challenges for successful adoption and then provide a recommended path forward.
We also recognize that the emergence of PMRs represents a complex interplay between technological innovation, urban needs, standards development, regulatory frameworks, and governance systems.
Our panelists shared their insights including the need to "learn by doing" and the need for different policy regimes based on local community needs that differ between urban core, suburban ring, and more rural infrastructure settings.
NEXT STEPS
We invite you to continue to explore how your community can get ready for the arrival of public-area mobile robots. Join the Urban Robotics Foundation! Sign up for future webinars. Let us know if you would like to host a workshop for your team members or want to hire URF's subject-matter experts to advise on your preparation for pilot projects and regulatory planning.
Please check these links for more information about our global partners, the Intelligent Community Forum, and our upcoming events:
Related Links:
Ohio’s Future of Mobility Conference (May 13-15, 2025)
Managing Pick-up and Drop-off at the Curb (URF Webinar-May 21, 2025)
URF Membership: https://www.urbanroboticsfoundation.org/member-benefits
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