Drones

Decent impartial article for once from the Independent

I mean, it says he lives near to a site, so you would see more from all the sites drones criss crossing compared to somebody on the outskirts. 25 journeys up and back over a day doesnt sound ridiculous as a media soundbite of the peak worst case scenario on a weekend during game-day events which is the example being talked about in the article. This summer it was a right issue.

Audio quality gets compressed and pick up some sounds more than others. record yourself and listen back to your voice while the kettle is on. You will sound different, the kettle won't be as noticeable either. And i doubt a free app would be accurate to stand over the results for much the same reason.

I would be just as skeptical of the company though, they have every reason to want to downplay the noise and exposure complaints and seem to regularly do so if you read other news article. Again a lot of this criticism around disturbance and scale up fears would be avoided if they didn't just fly straight over a line of estates back gardens and all, its shooting themselves in the foot. Alternatives would still present its own problems if scaled up significantly but the big criticism seems to be how they operate and the noise or privacy from that during both fly over and nearby delivery.

He said 15 mins walk - that's 1.5km. That's not very near.

As for routes, I think that they could appease a lot of the complaints if they went along or near main roads for a decent portion of the journey and break off from them near the end. Obviously this would not be efficient for all destinations but could help a lot. They might have to mix it up because there's a lot of houses along many main roads. There are 'routes' for planes so there could be some for drones.

Hard to tell - there is not enough information. It could be
A. Gated/walled estate increasing distance to exit. Then the direct proximity to the base is far less than 1.5km
B. Lives a 1.5km direct distance away.

Both would still be arguments against drones though if you think about it, they don't fly long distance over poor terrain nor directly from the restaurant. Food still needs to get to the base from the restaurant and delivered by drone. I would bet the bottleneck isn't delivery time …that is the symptom, but time spent preparing food & then not having somebody ready to immediately take it. Just like poor rstaurant service.

0 to 3km is nothing to cover on a delivery bike, or late night/weekend delivery vehicle going from restaurant to door when traffic is typically far less, you're talking about saving mere minutes by drone and introducing all the other issues around expectations on residential noise or privacy cause of how it beelines across peoples back gardens or cul-de-sac. The argument looks to be more favorable towards reducing the need to tip or employment numbers…but that looks a lot less flattering to state.

You would think if you have 50 drones every day we'd have better video of it.

I think we’re mostly in agreement, just expressing differently. My point is that the issue isn’t the delivery method but the logistics. Pro arguments are doing a sleight of hand to argue it lowers emissions and congestion, which do not stand up and downplaying concerns. I'm repeating myself a little here but to be a bit more descriptive.

A single delivery by bike, drone, or car over short distances will be negligible on time. Congestion at lunch or night is not that bad. Bike has lowest emissions, car has most emissions. However, in reality there isnt enough delivery staff to do single journies so they do multi-deliveries per journey. That is why I was saying the actual argument for drones seems to be to reduce delivery employment and funnel it to a middle man - which is obviously distasteful sounding compared to arguing its better for congestion, safety, emissions.

If drones had to account for time & emissions spent transferring from the restaurant to a hub, that would undermine their argument as faster or cleaner. And if they hypothetically had to avoid direct flyovers due to noise etc concerns from residents in the flight path, which looks to be an increasingly winning argument based on Fingals rejection of Junction 6 planning permission, it would knock it on its head. Their business case for efficiency assumes acceptance from households under flight paths & increasing air traffic & their customer base for time sensitive products like warm food or coffee.

The case looks worse again if doing non food items, at that point optimised routes shine, there is no way single deliveries of low weight volume in an air delivery system trying to sustain flight is more efficient than an electric van.

That's not an argument for optimisation but economy of scale.

Trains lost that argument to road transport.

Road transport lost that argument to couriers and cycle deliveries.

Hauling a van around with a huge battery is over specified when a small light battery eBike can do the same thing. Never mind a drone.

Direct route as the crow flies will use a lot less energy/better.

No one needs a flying doughnut.

If you open the Manna app now, there's an option to give your details and send a note of support to all of the D15 local representatives

Where in Coolmine est do they fly from. Never seen one there.

It's behind Dave McCann tyres. I saw a take off from there a good few months ago.

And in early September I saw a guy walk to the hub (it looked like it might have been from Thai Garden) and then a drone took off.

And means I can sit at home and relax instead of being out for half an hour or wait for a delivery driver to turn up unannounced between 60 and 90 min after I make the order.

Ill take the drone thanks.

Plus his travel distance is 1km compared to my 7km.

Even in that ridiculous scenario it's still driving less. So not really a flaw. I would assume since crossing the centre is so often gridlock they'd use a bike.

No one needs a fortune cookie by drone through.

What word would you like him to use? Delayed? I think we know what he means.