Kazakhstan Tests Yandex Robot Couriers in Astana

Astana has begun testing robot couriers for grocery deliveries in selected areas of the capital, allowing some residents to receive orders from Yandex Lavka without a human courier. Under the pilot project, customers within the service zone can select robot delivery when ordering through the Yandex Go app. The small autonomous vehicles travel along pavements before stopping outside the customer’s address, where the storage compartment can be opened using the app. The project is being run by Yandex Qazaqstan with the Astana city administration, the city police department and the municipal technology company Astana Innovations, according to an announcement by the Astana authorities. The robots use cameras and other sensors to identify pedestrians and obstacles, and travel at around 6 kilometers per hour. Initial street testing began on July 15, before the service was opened to regular Yandex Lavka customers later in the month. In a statement issued by the Astana city administration, Gizat Amirgali, chairman of Astana Innovations, said the trial would be used to assess the safety and reliability of autonomous deliveries in ordinary urban conditions, as well as customer responses to the service. Yandex has operated robot couriers in Russian cities for several years and is expanding their use. In March, the company said its robots had completed more than one million deliveries and traveled over two million kilometers in Russia, although the Astana project remains a small and geographically limited trial. The launch comes as Kazakhstan experiments with several forms of automated delivery and transport. A separate drone-delivery pilot, planned for Almaty, is intended to test the transport of food, medicines and everyday goods over short urban routes.