Uber is ready to leave the roads behind.  The company founded in 2009 by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick has quickly become one of the fastest growing companies worth over $70 billion!  While their largest service area is the United States, an Uber driver can be found in over 63 countries worldwide.  After Camp and his friends spent a ridiculous $800 for a private driver one New Year’s Eve he came up with an idea to make transportation easier, reliable, and budget friendly.  Hence the birth of Uber.  After their initial success Uber has continued to branch out in the fields of transportation.

In August 2014, Uber announced their latest project, UberEats a service that will send an Uber driver to pick up and deliver you takeout food orders.  In May 2018, they announced their hopes for an automated flying taxi.  It will be a drone large enough to seat 4 passengers that will takeoff and land from centrally locate rooftop ports.  The drone will have top stacked rotors to allow for vertical lift like a helicopter as well as a forward thrust propeller to aid in wing flight.  While still in the beginning design stages, Jeff Holden, Uber’s chief product officer, hopes to see their drone taxi become a reality in 2020.  In the meantime, starting July 9th, 2019 Uber is launching UberCopter.  This will be a helicopter service with a predetermined route.  Starting at $200, 4-5 passengers with limited luggage can take a helicopter from the Staten Island Ferry port in Manhattan, NY to JFK airport on Long Island.  A trip that could take upwards of an hour with traffic will now only take about 8 minutes.

Not long after the announcement of UberCopter comes yet another exciting announcement that pertains to the already existing UberEats.  Building onto UberEats, Uber will now begin offering food delivery via drone!  This comes after the FAA awarded Uber and the city of San Diego, CA permission to test a drone delivery system.  The FAA has been very reluctant with granting such programs as drone to home deliveries can pose safety risks.  However, with the success of several other drone delivery programs both in the US and abroad, the FAA has changed many of their policies.  Part of the reason Uber was granted permission to run this program is because they are devising a way of making the deliveries to hot spots rather than residences.

Uber partnered up with fast food giant McDonald’s to test run their drone delivery system on the San Diego State University campus.  While a standard UberEats delivery would result in your food being brought to the destination of your choice, this is a bit different.  Once a customer has completed placing an order through the app, the restaurant will prepare and package the meal.  Once packaged they will load it onto a drone.  The drone will then transport the package to a predetermined location all while being monitored by Uber’s Elevate Cloud System.  Once the drone reaches the drop off location, an UberEats delivery driver will unload and deliver the meal to it’s final destination.  Eventually Uber hopes to be able to have the drones autonomously release the packages directly to the roof of the car with little to no wait time to speed up the delivery.

This is a huge step for drone delivery logistics.  One of the biggest issues that has been holding back drone deliveries is finding a way to make it safe in congested environments.  Uber Elevate Head of Flight Operations Luke Fischer said, “We’ve been working closely with the FAA to ensure that we’re meeting requirements and prioritizing safety.  From there, our goal is to expand UberEats drone delivery so we can provide more options to more people at the tap of a button. We believe that Uber is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge as we’re able to leverage the UberEats network of restaurant partners and delivery partners as well as the aviation experience and technology of Uber Elevate.”

For years now consumers have been teased with the possibility of drone deliveries.  With successful programs running in Switzerland and now at a North Carolina medical campus, the FAA and drone logistics engineers are stepping up the game.  Once Uber has their UberEats drones fully operational in San Diego, it will be only a matter of time before it starts spreading to other urban areas.